Many protocols of quantum information processing, like quantum key distribution or measurement-based quantum computation, 'consume' entangled quantum states during their execution. When participants are located at distant sites, these resource states need to be distributed. Due to transmission losses quantum repeater become necessary for large distances (e.g. ). Here we generalize the concept of the graph state repeater to D -dimensional graph states and to repeaters that can perform basic measurement-based quantum computations, which we call quantum routers. This processing of data at intermediate network nodes is called quantum network coding. We describe how a scheme to distribute general two-colourable graph states via quantum routers with network coding can be constructed from classical linear network codes. The robustness of the distribution of graph states against outages of network nodes is analysed by establishing a link to stabilizer error correction codes. Furthermore we show, that for any stabilizer error correction code there exists a corresponding quantum network code with similar error correcting capabilities.
Many protocols of quantum information processing, like quantum key distribution or measurement-based quantum computation, 'consume' entangled quantum states during their execution. When participants are located at distant sites, these resource states need to be distributed. Due to transmission losses quantum repeater become necessary for large distances (e.g. ). Here we generalize the concept of the graph state repeater to D -dimensional graph states and to repeaters that can perform basic measurement-based quantum computations, which we call quantum routers. This processing of data at intermediate network nodes is called quantum network coding. We describe how a scheme to distribute general two-colourable graph states via quantum routers with network coding can be constructed from classical linear network codes. The robustness of the distribution of graph states against outages of network nodes is analysed by establishing a link to stabilizer error correction codes. Furthermore we show, that for any stabilizer error correction code there exists a corresponding quantum network code with similar error correcting capabilities.
Society relies and depends increasingly on information exchange and communication. In the quantum world, security and privacy is a built-in feature for information processing. The essential ingredient for exploiting these quantum advantages is the resource of entanglement, which can be shared between two or more parties. The distribution of entanglement over large distances constitutes a key challenge for current research and development. Due to losses of the transmitted quantum particles, which typically scale exponentially with the distance, intermediate quantum repeater stations are needed. Here we show how to generalise the quantum repeater concept to the multipartite case, by describing large-scale quantum networks, i.e. network nodes and their long-distance links, consistently in the language of graphs and graph states. This unifying approach comprises both the distribution of multipartite entanglement across the network, and the protection against errors via encoding. The correspondence to graph states also provides a tool for optimising the architecture of quantum networks.
All-photonic quantum repeaters are essential for establishing long-range quantum entanglement. Within repeater nodes, reliably performing entanglement swapping is a key component of scalable quantum communication. To tackle the challenge of probabilistic Bell state measurement in linear optics, which often leads to information loss, various approaches have been proposed to ensure the loss tolerance of distributing a single ebit. We have generalized previous work regarding repeater graph states with elaborate connectivity, enabling the efficient establishment of exploitable ebits at a finite rate with high probability. We demonstrate that our new scheme significantly outperforms the previous work with much flexibility and discuss the generation overhead of such resource states. These findings offer new insights into the scalability and reliability of loss-tolerant quantum networks.
Building large-scale quantum computers, essential to demonstrating quantum advantage, is a key challenge. Quantum networks can help address this challenge by enabling the construction of large, robust, and more capable quantum computing platforms by connecting smaller quantum computers. Moreover, unlike classical systems, quantum networks can enable fully secured long-distance communication. Thus, quantum networks lie at the heart of the success of future quantum information technologies. In quantum networks, multipartite entangled states distributed over the network help implement and support many quantum network applications for communications, sensing, and computing. Our work focuses on developing optimal techniques to generate and distribute multipartite entanglement states efficiently. Prior works on generating general multipartite entanglement states have focused on the objective of minimizing the number of maximally entangled pairs while ignoring the heterogeneity of the network nodes and links as well as the stochastic nature of underlying processes. In this work, we develop a hypergraph-based linear programming framework that delivers optimal (under certain assumptions) generation schemes for general multipartite entanglement represented by graph states, under the network resources, decoherence, and fidelity constraints, while considering the stochasticity of the underlying processes. We illustrate our technique by developing generation schemes for the special cases of path and tree graph states and discuss optimized generation schemes for more general classes of graph states. Using extensive simulations over a quantum network simulator, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our developed techniques and show that they outperform prior known schemes by up to orders of magnitude.
Quantum graph states are highly entangled quantum states known to exhibit properties useful in applications such as quantum error correction, quantum computation, etc. We distribute quantum information across nodes, each having a qubit at its location, by using encoding techniques. We call it a quantum graph state code. By modeling the loss of a qubit due to failure of a node as a quantum erasure, we present a recovery mechanism for distributed quantum information using purification followed by an error correction procedure.
Abstract Remote quantum entanglement can enable numerous applications including distributed quantum computation, secure communication, and precision sensing. We consider how a quantum network—nodes equipped with limited quantum processing capabilities connected via lossy optical links—can distribute high-rate entanglement simultaneously between multiple pairs of users. We develop protocols for such quantum “repeater” nodes, which enable a pair of users to achieve large gains in entanglement rates over using a linear chain of quantum repeaters, by exploiting the diversity of multiple paths in the network. Additionally, we develop repeater protocols that enable multiple user pairs to generate entanglement simultaneously at rates that can far exceed what is possible with repeaters time sharing among assisting individual entanglement flows. Our results suggest that the early-stage development of quantum memories with short coherence times and implementations of probabilistic Bell-state measurements can have a much more profound impact on quantum networks than may be apparent from analyzing linear repeater chains. This framework should spur the development of a general quantum network theory, bringing together quantum memory physics, quantum information theory, quantum error correction, and computer network theory.
This study proposes a novel scheme for distributing GHZ-equivalent states across repeater-based quantum networks, with particular focus on the analysis and mitigation of decoherence effects during transmission. The proposed scheme enables remote users to share graph states, which can be leveraged to implement various quantum communication protocols, such as quantum key distribution and quantum secret sharing. Compared with existing approaches, the proposed distributed scheme requires only O(N) qubits without introducing redundant entanglement structures. Together with the linear-scaling merging procedure in both controlled gate count and qubit usage, the proposed framework supports more efficient large-scale graph state distribution. To evaluate its feasibility and correctness, this study utilizes the quantum network simulation tool, NetSquid, to implement the proposed scheme. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is both effective and practical for executing quantum communication protocols within quantum networks.