Comparing classical and quantum PageRanks

Following recent developments in quantum PageRanking, we present a comparative analysis of discrete-time and continuous-time quantum-walk-based PageRank algorithms. Relative to classical PageRank and to different extents, the quantum measures better highlight secondary hubs and resolve ranking degeneracy among peripheral nodes for all networks we studied in this paper. For the discrete-time case, we investigated the periodic nature of the walker’s probability distribution for a wide range of networks and found that the dominant period does not grow with the size of these networks. Based on this observation, we introduce a new quantum measure using the maximum probabilities of the associated walker during the first couple of periods. This is particularly important, since it leads to a quantum PageRanking scheme that is scalable with respect to network size.