A stroll through quantum walks

The subject of quantum walks emerged from considerations of the ubiquitous random walks inherent in diffusion in physics and chemistry, randomized algorithms in computer science, and Wiener measures in mathematics. From its humble beginnings as a generalization of random walks, quantum walks have emerged into a large-scale theoretical and experimental research area that extends into a wide spectrum of areas including universal quantum computing, simulating topological phenomena, and modeling energy transport in certain biological molecular complexes. I begin with a primer on quantum walks and then cover current hot theoretical studies and experimental implementations of quantum walks.