Quantum Walk
Moving a single atom into a spin superposition and applying a spin-dependent transport step creates two atom "halves" that are spatially separated, yet coherent. Repeating this several times leads to interference between the different components of the atom, resulting in a characteristic double-peak distribution. This quantum mechanical analogue to the classical random walk offers a number of possibilites for quantum information processing by manipulating the phases of the different components to affect the final distribution. This is contingent on extending the coherence time of the system to accomodate many operations. Read our publication.
Fig. 3: Splitting an atom into many components and letting them interfere causes the double-peaked probability distribution. In every shot, the atom moves a small number of lattice sites.
