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Quantum network routing and local complementation

Frederik Hahn, Anna Pappa, Jens Eisert

Published Jan 1, 2019• 83 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum communication between distant parties is based on suitable instances of shared entanglement. For efficiency reasons, in an anticipated quantum network beyond point-to-point communication, it is preferable that many parties can communicate simultaneously over the underlying infrastructure; however, bottlenecks in the network may cause delays. Sharing of multi-partite entangled states between parties offers a solution, allowing for parallel quantum communication. Specifically for the two-pair problem, the butterfly network provides the first instance of such an advantage in a bottleneck scenario. In this paper, we propose a more general method for establishing EPR pairs in arbitrary networks. The main difference from standard repeater network approaches is that we use a graph state instead of maximally entangled pairs to achieve long-distance simultaneous communication. We demonstrate how graph-theoretic tools, and specifically local complementation, help decrease the number of required measurements compared to usual methods applied in repeater schemes. We examine other examples of network architectures, where deploying local complementation techniques provides an advantage. We finally consider the problem of extracting graph states for quantum communication via local Clifford operations and Pauli measurements, and discuss that while the general problem is known to be NP-complete, interestingly, for specific classes of structured resources, polynomial time algorithms can be identified.

DOI
10.17169/refubium-25518

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Quantum communication between distant parties is based on suitable instances of shared entanglement. For efficiency reasons, in an anticipated quantum network beyond point-to-point communication, it is preferable that many parties can communicate simultaneously over the underlying infrastructure; however, bottlenecks in the network may cause delays. Sharing of multi-partite entangled states between parties offers a solution, allowing for parallel quantum communication. Specifically for the two-pair problem, the butterfly network provides the first instance of such an advantage in a bottleneck scenario. In this paper, we propose a more general method for establishing EPR pairs in arbitrary networks. The main difference from standard repeater network approaches is that we use a graph state instead of maximally entangled pairs to achieve long-distance simultaneous communication. We demonstrate how graph-theoretic tools, and specifically local complementation, help decrease the number of required measurements compared to usual methods applied in repeater schemes. We examine other examples of network architectures, where deploying local complementation techniques provides an advantage. We finally consider the problem of extracting graph states for quantum communication via local Clifford operations and Pauli measurements, and discuss that while the general problem is known to be NP-complete, interestingly, for specific classes of structured resources, polynomial time algorithms can be identified.
Abstract Quantum communication between distant parties is based on suitable instances of shared entanglement. For efficiency reasons, in an anticipated quantum network beyond point-to-point communication, it is preferable that many parties can communicate simultaneously over the underlying infrastructure; however, bottlenecks in the network may cause delays. Sharing of multi-partite entangled states between parties offers a solution, allowing for parallel quantum communication. Specifically for the two-pair problem, the butterfly network provides the first instance of such an advantage in a bottleneck scenario. In this paper, we propose a more general method for establishing EPR pairs in arbitrary networks. The main difference from standard repeater network approaches is that we use a graph state instead of maximally entangled pairs to achieve long-distance simultaneous communication. We demonstrate how graph-theoretic tools, and specifically local complementation, help decrease the number of required measurements compared to usual methods applied in repeater schemes. We examine other examples of network architectures, where deploying local complementation techniques provides an advantage. We finally consider the problem of extracting graph states for quantum communication via local Clifford operations and Pauli measurements, and discuss that while the general problem is known to be NP-complete, interestingly, for specific classes of structured resources, polynomial time algorithms can be identified.
Abstract Distributing entangled states among users is a fundamental problem in quantum networks. Existing protocols like protocol introduced in [npj Quantum Inf. 2019, 5, 76] use graph theoretic tools like local complementation to optimize the number of measurements required to extract any Bell pair among the network users. Such a protocol relies on finding the shortest path between the users. Here, it is established that, in general, the most optimal path to perform the protocol is not along the shortest path. Specific examples of this advantage are provided on networks of size as small as 12 qubits. Bottlenecks in establishing simultaneous Bell pairs in nearest‐neighbor architectures are also explored. Recent results suggesting the unsuitability of the line and ring networks for the implementation of quantum networks due to the bottlenecks are revisited, and using local equivalency relations from graph theory, it's hinted that even grid graphs are not exempted from bottleneck issues. Finally, bottlenecks are simulated in grid graphs of sizes up to . Analysis reveals relative positions within a grid graph that are more susceptible to bottlenecks. It demonstrates the superiority of the protocol along paths that are not shortest paths while avoiding bottlenecks for simultaneous communication requests.
Quantum networks are important for quantum communication, enabling tasks such as quantum teleportation, quantum key distribution, quantum sensing, and quantum error correction, often utilizing graph states, a specific class of multipartite entangled states that can be represented by graphs. We propose a novel approach for distributing graph states across a quantum network. We show that the distribution of graph states can be characterized by a system of subgraph complementations, which we also relate to the minimum rank of the underlying graph and the degree of entanglement quantified by the Schmidt-rank of the quantum state. We analyze resource usage for our algorithm and show that it improves on the number of qubits, bits for classical communication, and EPR pairs utilized, as compared to prior work. In fact, the number of local operations and resource consumption for our approach scales linearly in the number of vertices. This produces a quadratic improvement in completion time for several classes of graph states represented by dense graphs, which translates into an exponential improvement by allowing parallelization of gate operations. This leads to improved fidelities in the presence of noisy operations, as we show through simulation in the presence of noisy operations. We classify common classes of graph states, along with their optimal distribution time using subgraph complementations. We find a sequence of subgraph complementation operations to distribute an arbitrary graph state which we conjecture is close to the optimal sequence, and establish upper bounds on distribution time along with providing approximate greedy algorithms.
Quantum networks are important for quantum communication and consist of entangled states that are essential for many tasks such as quantum teleportation, quantum key distribution, quantum sensing and quantum error correction. Graph states are a specific class of multipartite entangled states that can be represented by graphs. We propose a novel approach for distributing graph states across a quantum network. We show that the distribution of graph states can be characterised bya\boldsymbol{a}asystem of subgraph complementations, which we also relate to the minimum rank of the underlying graph and the degree of entanglement quantified by the Schmidt-rank of the quantum state. We analyse resource usage for our algorithm and show it to match or be improved in the number of qubits, bits for classical communication and EPR pairs utilised, as compared to prior work. The number of local operations is efficient, and the resource consumption for our approach scales linearly in the number of vertices. This presents a quadratic improvement in completion time for several classes of graph states represented by dense graphs, and implies a potential for improved fidelity in the presence of noise. Common classes of graph states are classified along with the optimal time for their distribution using subgraph complementations. We also provide a framework to similarly find the optimal sequence of operations to distribute an arbitrary graph state, and prove upper bounds along with providing approximate greedy algorithms.
Graph states form an important class of multipartite entangled quantum states. We propose a new approach for distributing graph states across a quantum network. We consider a quantum network consisting of nodes—quantum computers within which local operations are free—and EPR pairs shared between nodes that can continually be generated. We prove upper bounds for our approach on the number of EPR pairs consumed, completion time, and amount of classical communication required, all of which are equal to or better than that of prior work [10]. We also reduce the problem of minimizing the completion time to distribute a graph state using our approach to a network flow problem having polynomial time complexity.
Conventional quantum routing operates under the entrenched assumption that pathfinding is a prerequisite for routing. This classical-inspired routing model imposes a restricting design option, which prevents scaling the quantumness to the network functioning. In this paper, we proposed a novel entanglement-driven routing framework that exploits multipartite entanglement complementation for enabling simultaneous 1-hop connectivity among all non-adjacent source-destination pairs. This changes the notion of ``remoteness'' in the entanglement graph, activated by entanglement. We extend this framework to inter-domain quantum networks and design a polynomial-time algorithm. Such an algorithm allows to select and parallelize multiple requests, bypassing NP-complete path discovery. Performance analysis shows the proposed routing strategy achieves up to 60%60\%60% hop reduction, with the algorithm enabling efficient parallelism and strong scalability in inter-domain quantum networks.