Quantumness of noisy quantum walks: A comparison between measurement-induced disturbance and quantum discord

Noisy quantum walks are studied from the perspective of comparing their quantumness as defined by two popular measures, measurement-induced disturbance (MID) and quantum discord (QD). While the former has an operational definition, unlike the latter, it also tends to overestimate nonclassicality because of a lack of optimization over local measurements. Applied to quantum walks, we find that MID, while acting as a loose upper bound on QD, still tends to reflect correctly trends in the behavior of the latter. However, there are regimes where its behavior is not indicative of nonclassicality: in particular, we find an instance where MID increases with the application of noise, where we expect a reduction of quantumness. © 2011 American Physical Society.