Resonances of recurrence time of monitored quantum walks

Abstract

The recurrence time is the time a process first returns to its initial state. Using quantum walks on a graph, the recurrence time is defined through the stroboscopic monitoring of the arrival of the particle to a node of the system. When the time interval between repeated measurements is tuned in such a way that the eigenvalues of the unitary become degenerate, the mean recurrence time exhibits resonances. These resonances imply faster mean recurrence times, which were recorded on quantum computers. The resonance broadening is captured by a restart uncertainty relation [Yin et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122, e2402912121 (2025)]. To ensure a comprehensive analysis, we extend our investigation to include the impact of system size on the widened resonances, showing how the connectivity and energy spectrum structure of a system influence the restart uncertainty relation. Breaking the symmetry of the system, for example time-reversal symmetry breaking with a magnetic flux applied to a ring, removes the degeneracy of the eigenvalues of the unitary, hence modifying the mean recurrence time and the widening of the transitions, and this effect is studied in detail. The width of the resonances studied here is related to the finite time resolution of relevant experiments on quantum computers and to the restart paradigm.