Spin chains as perfect quantum state mirrors

Quantum information transfer is an important part of quantum information processing. Several proposals for quantum information transfer along linear arrays of nearest-neighbor coupled qubits or spins were made recently. Perfect transfer was shown to exist in two models with specifically designed strongly inhomogeneous couplings. We show that perfect transfer occurs in an entire class of chains, including systems whose nearest-neighbor couplings vary only weakly along the chain. The key to these observations is the Jordan-Wigner mapping of spins to noninteracting lattice fermions that display perfectly periodic dynamics if the single-particle energy spectrum is appropriate. After a half-period of that dynamics, any state is transformed into its mirror image with respect to the center of the chain. The absence of fermion interactions preserves these features at an arbitrary temperature and allows for the transfer of nontrivially entangled states of several spins or qubits.