Quantum networks have experienced rapid advancements in both theoretical and experimental domains over the last decade, making it increasingly important to understand their large-scale features from the viewpoint of statistical physics. This review paper discusses a fundamental question: how can entanglement be effectively and indirectly (e.g., through intermediate nodes) distributed between distant nodes in an imperfect quantum network, where the connections are only partially entangled and subject to quantum noise? We survey recent studies addressing this issue by drawing exact or approximate mappings to percolation theory, a branch of statistical physics centered on network connectivity. Notably, we show that the classical percolation frameworks do not uniquely define the network's indirect connectivity. This realization leads to the emergence of an alternative theory called "concurrence percolation", which uncovers a previously unrecognized quantum advantage that emerges at large scales, suggesting that quantum networks are more resilient than initially assumed within classical percolation contexts, offering refreshing insights into future quantum network design.
Quantum networks have experienced rapid advancements in both theoretical and experimental domains over the last decade, making it increasingly important to understand their large-scale features from the viewpoint of statistical physics. This review paper discusses a fundamental question: how can entanglement be effectively and indirectly (e.g., through intermediate nodes) distributed between distant nodes in an imperfect quantum network, where the connections are only partially entangled and subject to quantum noise? We survey recent studies addressing this issue by drawing exact or approximate mappings to percolation theory, a branch of statistical physics centered on network connectivity. Notably, we show that the classical percolation frameworks do not uniquely define the network's indirect connectivity. This realization leads to the emergence of an alternative theory called "concurrence percolation", which uncovers a previously unrecognized quantum advantage that emerges at large scales, suggesting that quantum networks are more resilient than initially assumed within classical percolation contexts, offering refreshing insights into future quantum network design.
Quantum entanglement as a non-local correlation between particles is critical to the transmission of quantum information in quantum networks (QNs); the key challenge lies in establishing long-distance entanglement transmission between distant targets. This issue aligns with percolation theory, and as a result, an entanglement distribution scheme called “Classical Entanglement Percolation” (CEP) has been proposed. While this scheme provides an effective framework, “Quantum Entanglement Percolation” (QEP) indicates a lower percolation threshold through quantum preprocessing strategies, which will modify the network topology. Meanwhile, an emerging statistical theory known as “Concurrence Percolation” reveals the unique advantages of quantum networks, enabling entanglement transmission under lower conditions. It fundamentally belongs to a different universality class from classical percolation. Although these studies have made significant theoretical advancements, most are based on an idealized pure state network model. In practical applications, quantum states are often affected by thermal noise, resulting in mixed states. When these mixed states meet specific conditions, they can be transformed into pure states through quantum operations and further converted into singlets with a certain probability, thereby facilitating entanglement percolation in mixed state networks. This finding greatly broadens the application prospects of quantum networks. This review offers a comprehensive overview of the fundamental theories of quantum percolation and the latest cutting-edge research developments.
Establishing long-distance quantum entanglement, i.e., entanglement transmission, in quantum networks (QN) is a key and timely challenge for developing efficient quantum communication. Traditional comprehension based on classical percolation assumes a necessary condition for successful entanglement transmission between any two infinitely distant nodes: they must be connected by at least a path of perfectly entangled states (singlets). Here, we relax this condition by explicitly showing that one can focus not on optimally converting singlets but on establishing concurrence-a key measure of bipartite entanglement. We thereby introduce a new statistical theory, concurrence percolation theory (ConPT), remotely analogous to classical percolation but fundamentally different, built by generalizing bond percolation in terms of "sponge-crossing" paths instead of clusters. Inspired by resistance network analysis, we determine the path connectivity by series and parallel rules and approximate higher-order rules via star-mesh transforms. Interestingly, we find that the entanglement transmission threshold predicted by ConPT is lower than the known classical-percolation-based results and is readily achievable on any series-parallel networks such as the Bethe lattice. ConPT promotes our understanding of how well quantum communication can be further systematically improved versus classical statistical predictions under the limitation of QN locality-a "quantum advantage" that is more general and efficient than expected. ConPT also shows a percolationlike universal critical behavior derived by finite-size analysis on the Bethe lattice and regular two-dimensional lattices, offering new perspectives for a theory of criticality in entanglement statistics.
Quantum communication demands efficient distribution of quantum entanglement across a network of connected partners. The search for efficient strategies for the entanglement distribution may be based on percolation theory, which describes evolution of network connectivity with respect to some network parameters. In this framework, the probability to establish perfect entanglement between two remote partners decays exponentially with the distance between them before the percolation transition point, which unambiguously defines percolation properties of any classical network or lattice. Here we introduce quantum networks created with local operations and classical communication, which exhibit non-classical percolation transition points leading to striking communication advantages over those offered by the corresponding classical networks. We show, in particular, how to establish perfect entanglement between any two nodes in the simplest possible network-the 1D chain-using imperfectly entangled pairs of qubits.
Entanglement percolation aims at generating maximal entanglement between any two nodes of a quantum network by utilizing strategies based solely on local operations and classical communication between the nodes. As it happens in classical percolation theory, the topology of the network is crucial, but also the entanglement shared between the nodes of the network. In a network of identically partially entangled states, the network topology determines the minimum entanglement needed for percolation. In this work, we generalize the protocol to scenarios where the initial entanglement shared between any two nodes of the network is not the same but has some randomness. In such cases, we find that for classical entanglement percolation, only the average initial entanglement is relevant. In contrast, the quantum entanglement percolation protocol (within the q-swap framework) degrades under these more realistic conditions as the width of the distribution increases, suggesting that Random CEP may become the optimal LOCC strategy in sufficiently heterogeneous quantum networks.
Abstract Quantum communication demands efficient distribution of quantum entanglement across a network of connected partners. The search for efficient strategies for the entanglement distribution may be based on percolation theory, which describes evolution of network connectivity with respect to some network parameters. In this framework, the probability to establish perfect entanglement between two remote partners decays exponentially with the distance between them before the percolation transition point, which unambiguously defines percolation properties of any classical network or lattice. Here we introduce quantum networks created with local operations and classical communication, which exhibit non-classical percolation transition points leading to striking communication advantages over those offered by the corresponding classical networks. We show, in particular, how to establish perfect entanglement between any two nodes in the simplest possible network—the 1D chain—using imperfectly entangled pairs of qubits.
The realization of entanglement distribution (ED) in large-scale quantum networks (QNs), as a fundamental theoretical framework of quantum communication, faces significant challenges. Percolation theory, drawn from statistical physics, has been identified as a potential solution to this problem. Nevertheless, when addressing ED, percolation theory primarily relies on numerical simulations and approximate algorithms. This approach often lacks interpretability and controllability for many phenomena occurring during the ED process in large-scale networks, including emergent phenomena near the threshold. To address these limitations, in this paper, we {focus on} leveraging operator theory to construct a mathematical framework for entanglement percolation in series-parallel QNs. Through the application of operator-theoretic methodologies, we analyze several critical issues within the entanglement percolation process.