Quantifying Racial Segregation Through Continuous-Time Quantum Walks

With the development of cities, racial segregation is one of the reasons for social inequality on a large scale, it is also a major factor affecting economic development. However, racial segregation has received comparatively limited attention in research. In the paper, we propose a segregation index independent of any parameters( titled Quantum Walk Convergence Time), which calculates the convergence time statistics for accessing different racial categories through quantum walks on complex networks constructed from urban systems. The magnitude of the time statistics represents the degree of racial segregation. The results generated by our method can also be applied to other social factors, including family situation, income level, and education level. We evaluate our method using large-scale real datasets, including statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office for National Statistics in the UK. The results demonstrate the close correlation between our method and the degree of racial segregation, showing advantages over traditional random walk methods.