Networked Quantum Systems

Ming-Xing Luo

Anees Al‐Najjar, Mariam Kiran, Yanbao Zhang +1 more

Quantum networks are needed for quantum domain applications that may run across different network deployments - point-to-point, multi-node networks, and possibly across inter-domain quantum networks, like the quantum internet. Unlike classical computing networks, quantum networks involve heterogeneous systems nodes that currently require local and manual control. This needs a unified control approach to help them integrate, work seamlessly, and have global knowledge. Software-defined Networking (SDN) has been successfully leveraged in classical networking for seamless and software-driven control of network infrastructure and packet switching, but not in management of quantum network applications across heterogeneous systems. In this paper, we review the current state of the art and present early developments of a System-of-Systems Software-defined Quantum Networking architecture (SoS-SDQN), a generic architecture that supports software-driven quantum network experiments across heterogeneous quantum systems. The architecture modifies the generic SDN to address the domain requirements of quantum networks and proposes a multilevel SDQN to provide a global view of network status, running applications, and control of incorporated heterogeneous quantum systems. We also design and implement a SoS SouthBound Quantum Interface (SoS-SBQI), a quantum infrastructure protocol that abstracts automation of applications across the network.

John Edward Gough, M. R. James

The purpose of this paper is to present general algebraic methods for describing quantum networks. These methods are motivated by new imperatives of quantum network analysis and design, in particular, feedback control. The basic tools in our methodology are a matrix representation of open quantum systems, and the concatenation and series products of two such systems. We show how these methods can be used to efficiently model open quantum systems, or networks of such systems. We also explain how quantum feedback networks can be designed using these methods.

Wei-Yang Liu, Hsuan-Wei Lee

We investigate the dissipative dynamics of quantum population and coherence among different network topologies of a quantum network using a quantum spin model coupled to a thermal bosonic reservoir. Our study proceeds in two parts. First, we analyze a small network of Ising spins embedded in a large dissipative bath, modeled via the Lindblad master equation, where temperature arises naturally from system-bath coupling. This approach reveals how network topology shapes quantum dissipative dynamics, providing a basis for controlling quantum coherence through tailored network structures. Second, we propose a mean-field approach that extends the network to larger scales and captures dissipative dynamics in large-scale networks, connecting network topology to quantum coherence in complex systems and revealing the sensitivity of quantum coherence to network structure. Our results highlight how dissipative quantum dynamics depend on network topology, providing insight into the coherent dynamics of entangled states in networks. These results may be extended to dynamics in complex systems such as opinion propagation in social models, epidemiology, and various condensed-phase and biological systems.

Cheng Li Wu

Bassano Vacchini