PubMed2002
We introduce a family of models for quantum mechanical, one-dimensional random walks, called quantum multibaker maps (QMB). These are Weyl quantizations of the classical multibaker models previously considered by Gaspard, Tasaki, and others. Depending on the properties of the phase's parametrizing the quantization, we consider only two classes of the QMB maps: uniform and random. Uniform QMB maps are characterized by phases that are the same in every unit cell of the multibaker chain. Random QMB maps have phases that vary randomly from unit cell to unit cell. The eigenstates in the former case are extended while in the latter they are localized. In the uniform case and for large variant Planck's over 2pi, analytic solutions can be obtained for the time-dependent quantum states for periodic chains and for open chains with absorbing boundary conditions. Steady state solutions and the properties of the relaxation to a steady state for a uniform QMB chain in contact with "particle" reservoirs can also be described analytically. The analytical results are consistent with, and confirmed by, results obtained from numerical methods. We report here results for the deep quantum regime (large variant Planck's over 2pi ) of the uniform QMB, as well as some results for the random QMB. We leave the moderate and small variant Planck's over 2pi results as well as further consideration of the other versions of the QMB for further publications.