First detection of a quantum walker on an infinite line

Felix Thiel, Eli Barkai, David A. Kessler

Published 2017-06-16Version 1

The first detection of a quantum particle on a graph has been shown to depend sensitively on the sampling time {\tau} . Here we use the recently introduced quantum renewal equation to investigate the statistics of first detection on an infinite line, using a tight-binding lattice Hamiltonian with nearest- neighbor hops. Universal features of the first detection probability are uncovered and simple limiting cases are analyzed. These include the small {\tau} limit and the power law decay with attempt number of the detection probability over which quantum oscillations are superimposed. When the sampling time is equal to the inverse of the energy band width, non-analytical behaviors arise, accompanied by a transition in the statistics. The maximum total detection probability is found to occur for {\tau} close to this transition point. When the initial location of the particle is far from the detection node we find that the total detection probability attains a finite value which is distance independent.