In this paper we present an approach to quantum cloning with unmodulated spin
networks. The cloner is realized by a proper design of the network and a choice
of the coupling between the qubits. We show that in the case of phase covariant
cloner the XY coupling gives the best results. In the 1->2 cloning we find that
the value for the fidelity of the optimal cloner is achieved, and values
comparable to the optimal ones in the general N->M case can be attained. If a
suitable set of network symmetries are satisfied, the output fidelity of the
clones does not depend on the specific choice of the graph. We show that spin
network cloning is robust against the presence of static imperfections.
Moreover, in the presence of noise, it outperforms the conventional approach.
In this case the fidelity exceeds the corresponding value obtained by quantum
gates even for a very small amount of noise. Furthermore we show how to use
this method to clone qutrits and qudits. By means of the Heisenberg coupling it
is also possible to implement the universal cloner although in this case the
fidelity is 10% off that of the optimal cloner.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, published versio