Implementing quantum gates through scattering between a static and a flying qubit

We investigate whether a two-qubit quantum gate can be implemented in a scattering process involving a flying and a static qubit. To this end, we focus on a paradigmatic setup made out of a mobile particle and a quantum impurity, whose respective spin degrees of freedom couple to each other during a one-dimensional scattering process. Once a condition for the occurrence of quantum gates is derived in terms of spin-dependent transmission coefficients, we show that this can be actually fulfilled through the insertion of an additional narrow potential barrier. An interesting observation is that under resonance conditions this procedure enables a gate only for isotropic Heisenberg (exchange) interactions and fails for an XY interaction.We show the existence of parameter regimes for which gates able to establish a maximum amount of entanglement can be implemented. The gates are found to be robust to variations of the optimal parameters.