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  • Open Access

Quantum random walks on d-regular graphs with Haar-random coin operators

Alice C. Quillen*,†

  • *Contact author: aquillen@ur.rochester.edu
  • †Visitor at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Noethnitzer Str. 38, Dresden 011187, Germany.
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Phys. Rev. A 114, 042410 – Published 7 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rmmp-xdqy

Abstract

With a unitary coin operator that is a random matrix drawn from a uniform distribution with respect to the Haar measure, we construct a variant of a discrete quantum random walk using a d-regular undirected connected simple graph. With each step of the walk, the coin operator random matrix is drawn independently from the distribution. The expectation value over the distribution of random unitaries for the associated quantum channel gives a depolarization channel for the coin subspace and resembles the associated classical random walk where the direction a walker steps depends upon the outcome of a fair coin or balanced d-sided dice. Remarkably, despite the fact that the averaged channel depolarizes the coin subspace, measurements in the vertex subspace can be designed that would reveal information about the initial quantum state, even after many iterations of the channel. We illustrate with examples of quantum walks on Cayley graphs of Abelian groups, such as the cycle and hypercube graphs. For Cayley graphs of Abelian groups, the averaged channel is dephasing in the Fourier basis. These quantum walks are examples of bipartite strongly interacting systems, where one subsystem is strongly perturbed, yet information about the initial state in the other subsystem is potentially measurable forever. Due to its decoherence, a quantum random walk with a Haar-random coin would not be useful in search algorithms but could aid in understanding quantum systems with strongly perturbed subsystems.

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Phys. Rev. A 114, 042410– Published 7 October, 2026
  • Received 9 July 2026
  • Accepted 18 September 2026
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