We study one-dimensional quantum walks in a homogenous electric field. The field is given by a phase which depends linearly on position and is applied after each step. The long time propagation properties of this system, such as revivals, ballistic expansion, and Anderson localization, depend very sensitively on the value of the electric field, Φ, e.g., on whether Φ/(2π) is rational or irrational. We relate these properties to the continued fraction expansion of the field. When the field is given only with finite accuracy, the beginning of the expansion allows analogous conclusions about the behavior on finite time scales.

A sequence of controlled collisions between a quantum system and its environment (composed of a set of quantum objects) naturally simulates (with arbitrary precision) any Markovian quantum dynamics of the system under consideration. In this paper we propose and study the problem of simulation of an arbitrary quantum channel via collision models. We show that a correlated environment is capable to simulate non-Markovian evolutions leading to any indivisible qubit channel. In particular, we derive the corresponding master equation generating a continuous time non-Markovian dynamics implementing the universal NOT gate being an example of the most non-Markovian quantum channels.

We address the problem of the robustness of entanglement of bipartite systems (qubits) interacting with dynamically independent environments. In particular, we focus on characterization of so-called local entanglement-annihilating two-qubit channels, which set the maximum permissible noise level allowing to perform entanglement-enabled experiments. The differences, but also subtle relations between entanglement-breaking and local entanglement-annihilating channels are emphasized. A detailed characterization of latter ones is provided for a variety of channels including depolarizing, unital, (generalized) amplitude-damping, and extremal channels. We consider also the convexity structure of local entanglement-annihilating qubit channels and introduce a concept of entanglement-annihilation duality.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure