Quantum fast hitting on glued trees mapped on a photonic chip

Abstract

Quantum walks on graphs play an important role in the field of quantum algorithms. Fast hitting is one of the properties that quantum walk algorithms can utilize to outperform classical random walk algorithms. Fast hitting refers to a particle starting from the entrance node on a graph and trying to hit the exit node quickly. Especially, continuous-time quantum walks on random glued binary trees have been investigated in theories extensively for their exponentially faster hitting speed over classical random walks. Here, using heralded single photons to represent quantum walkers and laser-written waveguide arrays to simulate the theoretical graph, we are able to demonstrate the hitting efficiency of quantum walks with tree depth as high as 16 layers for the first time. Furthermore, we expand the graph’s branching rate from 2 to 5, revealing that quantum walks can exhibit more superiority over classical random walks as the branching rate increases. Our results may shed light on the physical implementation of quantum walk algorithms as well as quantum computation and quantum simulation.