Eur. Phys. J. D (2016) 70: 189
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2016-60665-0

Regular Article

Anderson localisation in spin chains for perfect state transfer

¹ Department of Physics, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK
² Department of Nuclear Engineering, Kyoto University, Nishikyo-ku, 615-8530 Kyoto, Japan

^a RR contributed to the paper while at York, but she is not affiliated with the University of York at the point of publishing of the paper.
^b e-mail: mpee500@york.ac.uk
^c e-mail: irene.damico@york.ac.uk
^d e-mail: timothy.spiller@york.ac.uk

Received: 23 November 2015
Received in final form: 1 May 2016
Published online: 15 September 2016

Abstract

Anderson localisation is an important phenomenon arising in many areas of physics, and here we explore it in the context of quantum information devices. Finite dimensional spin chains have been demonstrated to be important devices for quantum information transport, and in particular can be engineered to allow for “perfect state transfer” (PST). Here we present extensive investigations of disordered PST spin chains, demonstrating spatial localisation and transport retardation effects, and relate these effects to conventional Anderson localisation. We provide thresholds for Anderson localisation in these finite quantum information systems for both the spatial and the transport domains. Finally, we consider the effect of disorder on the eigenstates and energy spectrum of our Hamiltonian, where results support our conclusions on the presence of Anderson localisation.