title: Photons walking the line: a quantum walk with adjustable coin operations.
abstract: We present the first robust implementation of a coined quantum walk over five steps using only passive optical elements. By employing a fiber network loop we keep the amount of required resources constant as the walker's position Hilbert space is increased. We observed a non-Gaussian distribution of the walker's final position, thus characterizing a faster spread of the photon wave packet in comparison to the classical random walk. The walk is realized for many different coin settings and initial states, opening the way for the implementation of a quantum-walk-based search algorithm.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Günther-Scharowsky-Strasse 1/Bau 24, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schreiber
authors.forename: K N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Cassemiro
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Potocek
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gábris
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Mosley
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Andersson
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Jex
authors.forename: Ch
authors.initials: Ch
authors.lastname: Silberhorn