Crossover from diffusive to ballistic transport in periodic quantum maps

We derive an expression for the mean square displacement (MSD) of a particle whose motion is governed by a uniform, periodic, quantum multi-baker map. The expression is a function of both time, t, and Planck’s constant, h, and allows a study of both the long time, t→∞, and semi-classical, h→0, limits taken in either order. We evaluate the expression using random matrix theory as well as numerically, and observe good agreement between both sets of results. The long time limit shows that particle transport is generically ballistic for any fixed value of Planck’s constant. However, for fixed times, the semi-classical limit leads to diffusion. The mean square displacement for non-zero Planck’s constant, and finite time, exhibits a crossover from diffusive to ballistic motion, with crossover time on the order of the inverse of Planck’s constant. We argue that these results are generic for a large class of 1D quantum random walks, similar to the quantum multi-baker, and that a sufficient condition for diffusion in the semi-classical limit is classically chaotic dynamics in each cell. Some connections between our work and the other literature on quantum random walks are discussed. These walks are of some interest in the theory of quantum computation.