  Quantum information transfer is an important part of quantum information
processing. Several proposals for quantum information transfer along linear
arrays of nearest-neighbor coupled qubits or spins were made recently. Perfect
transfer was shown to exist in two models with specifically designed strongly
inhomogeneous couplings. We show that perfect transfer occurs in an entire
class of chains, including systems whose nearest-neighbor couplings vary only
weakly along the chain. The key to these observations is the Jordan-Wigner
mapping of spins to noninteracting lattice fermions which display perfectly
periodic dynamics if the single-particle energy spectrum is appropriate. After
a half-period of that dynamics any state is transformed into its mirror image
with respect to the center of the chain. The absence of fermion interactions
preserves these features at arbitrary temperature and allows for the transfer
of nontrivially entangled states of several spins or qubits.
