Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications

Establishing High-Fidelity Entanglement in Quantum Repeater Chains

Zhenyu Liu, Stefano Maranò, Moe Z. Win

Published Apr 8, 2024• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Entanglement is crucial for many applications such as quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum communication. Establishment of entanglement between remote nodes, referred to as remote entanglement establishment (REE), is a key element of the quantum internet. This paper develops a theoretical framework for establishing high-fidelity entanglement between two remote nodes of a quantum repeater chain via entanglement generation, distillation, and swapping operations. In particular, an upper bound on the optimal REE rate under minimum fidelity requirements is established, and an REE policy that achieves such a bound asymptotically is presented. Results in this paper provide guidelines for protocol design in the quantum internet.

DOI
10.1109/jsac.2024.3380092

Related papers

An Asymptotically Achievable Rate Bound for Establishing High-Fidelity Entanglements in Quantum Networks

Zhenyu Liu, Stefano Maranò, Moe Z. Win

Entangled quantum states serve as important resources in quantum communication, quantum computing, and quantum sensing. Creating entangled states between remote nodes is referred to as remote entanglement establishment (REE). REE typically consists of three types of quantum operations: entanglement generation, distillation, and swapping. By carefully designing the sequence describing the order of these operations, this paper investigates REE in a repeater chain under the requirement that the fidelity of the established entanglements be above a desired threshold. Specifically, the paper derives an asymptotically achievable upper bound on the maximum REE rate.

IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing•Mar 18, 2024•2 citations

Routing entanglement in the quantum internet

Mihir Pant, Hari Krovi, Don Towsley +5 more

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.

arXiv:1708.07142•npj Quantum Information•Mar 13, 2019•441 citations

FENDI: Toward High-Fidelity Entanglement Distribution in the Quantum Internet

Huayue Gu, Zhouyu Li, Ruozhou Yu +4 more

A quantum network distributes quantum entanglements between remote nodes, and is key to many applications in secure communication, quantum sensing and distributed quantum computing. This paper explores the fundamental trade-off between the throughput and the quality of entanglement distribution in a multi-hop quantum repeater network. Compared to existing work which aims to heuristically maximize the entanglement distribution rate (EDR) and/or entanglement fidelity, our goal is to characterize the maximum achievable worst-case fidelity, while satisfying a bound on the maximum achievable expected EDR between an arbitrary pair of quantum nodes. This characterization will provide fundamental bounds on the achievable performance region of a quantum network, which can assist with the design of quantum network topology, protocols and applications. However, the task is highly non-trivial and is NP-hard as we shall prove. Our main contribution is a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme to approximate the achievable worst-case fidelity subject to a strict expected EDR bound, combining an optimal fidelity-agnostic EDR-maximizing formulation and a worst-case isotropic noise model. The EDR and fidelity guarantees can be implemented by a post-selection-and-storage protocol with quantum memories. By developing a discrete-time quantum network simulator, we conduct simulations to show the characterized performance region (the approximate Pareto frontier) of a network, and demonstrate that the designed protocol can achieve the performance region while existing protocols exhibit a substantial gap.

arXiv:2301.08269•IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking•Sep 13, 2024•28 citations

High-fidelity entanglement purification using chains of atoms and optical cavities

Denis Gonţa, Peter van Loock

In our previous paper [D. Gon\ifmmode \mbox{\c{t}}\else \c{t}\fi{}a and P. van Loock, Phys. Rev. A 84, 042303 (2011)], we proposed an efficient scheme to purify dynamically a bipartite entangled state using short chains of atoms coupled to high-finesse optical cavities. In contrast to conventional entanglement purification protocols, we avoid controlled-not gates and thus reduce complicated pulse sequences and superfluous qubit operations. In this paper, we significantly improve the output fidelity of remotely entangled atoms by introducing one additional entanglement protocol in each of the repeater nodes and by optimizing the laser beams required to control the entire scheme. Our improved distillation scheme yields an almost-unit output fidelity that, together with the entanglement distribution and swapping, opens an attractive route towards an efficient and experimentally feasible quantum repeater for long-distance quantum communication.

arXiv:1207.6008•Physical Review A•Nov 9, 2012•25 citations

Asynchronous entanglement routing for the quantum internet

Zebo Yang, Ali Ghubaish, Raj Kumar Jain +2 more

With the emergence of the Quantum Internet, the need for advanced quantum networking techniques has significantly risen. Various models of quantum repeaters have been presented, each delineating a unique strategy to ensure quantum communication over long distances. We focus on repeaters that employ entanglement generation and swapping. This revolves around establishing remote end-to-end entanglement through repeaters, a concept we denote as the “quantum-native” repeaters (also called “first-generation” repeaters in some literature). The challenges in routing with quantum-native repeaters arise from probabilistic entanglement generation and restricted coherence time. Current approaches use synchronized time slots to search for entanglement-swapping paths, resulting in inefficiencies. Here, we propose a new set of asynchronous routing protocols for quantum networks by incorporating the idea of maintaining a dynamic topology in a distributed manner, which has been extensively studied in classical routing for lossy networks, such as using a destination-oriented directed acyclic graph or a spanning tree. The protocols update the entanglement-link topology asynchronously, identify optimal entanglement-swapping paths, and preserve unused direct-link entanglements. Our results indicate that asynchronous protocols achieve a larger upper bound with an appropriate setting and significantly higher entanglement rate than existing synchronous approaches, and the rate increases with coherence time, suggesting that it will have a much more profound impact on quantum networks as technology advances.

arXiv:2312.14300•AVS Quantum Science•Jan 18, 2024•31 citations

Analytical and numerical bounds on entanglement delivery waiting times

Sebastiaan Brand, Tim J. Coopmans, David Elkouss +1 more

The vision of a global network that enables quantum communications between any point on Earth is known as the quantum internet. One crucial element of this network is the use of quantum repeater chains, which have the potential to overcome transmission losses and implement entanglement or quantum key distribution protocols over extended distances. There are various proposals for quantum repeaters, but they can generally be evaluated based on two main figures of merit: the average time for end-to-end entanglement delivery and the associated average fidelity. However, characterizing these quantities can be difficult due to factors such as feedback loops, decoherence, entanglement generation being a probabilistic process, and the potential failure of subprotocols. In this talk, I will discuss algorithmic and analytical methods for computing these quantities for relevant families of protocols.

Quantum Computing, Communication, and Simulation•Mar 8, 2023•0 citations
Entanglement is crucial for many applications such as quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum communication. Establishment of entanglement between remote nodes, referred to as remote entanglement establishment (REE), is a key element of the quantum internet. This paper develops a theoretical framework for establishing high-fidelity entanglement between two remote nodes of a quantum repeater chain via entanglement generation, distillation, and swapping operations. In particular, an upper bound on the optimal REE rate under minimum fidelity requirements is established, and an REE policy that achieves such a bound asymptotically is presented. Results in this paper provide guidelines for protocol design in the quantum internet.
Entangled quantum states serve as important resources in quantum communication, quantum computing, and quantum sensing. Creating entangled states between remote nodes is referred to as remote entanglement establishment (REE). REE typically consists of three types of quantum operations: entanglement generation, distillation, and swapping. By carefully designing the sequence describing the order of these operations, this paper investigates REE in a repeater chain under the requirement that the fidelity of the established entanglements be above a desired threshold. Specifically, the paper derives an asymptotically achievable upper bound on the maximum REE rate.
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.
A quantum network distributes quantum entanglements between remote nodes, and is key to many applications in secure communication, quantum sensing and distributed quantum computing. This paper explores the fundamental trade-off between the throughput and the quality of entanglement distribution in a multi-hop quantum repeater network. Compared to existing work which aims to heuristically maximize the entanglement distribution rate (EDR) and/or entanglement fidelity, our goal is to characterize the maximum achievable worst-case fidelity, while satisfying a bound on the maximum achievable expected EDR between an arbitrary pair of quantum nodes. This characterization will provide fundamental bounds on the achievable performance region of a quantum network, which can assist with the design of quantum network topology, protocols and applications. However, the task is highly non-trivial and is NP-hard as we shall prove. Our main contribution is a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme to approximate the achievable worst-case fidelity subject to a strict expected EDR bound, combining an optimal fidelity-agnostic EDR-maximizing formulation and a worst-case isotropic noise model. The EDR and fidelity guarantees can be implemented by a post-selection-and-storage protocol with quantum memories. By developing a discrete-time quantum network simulator, we conduct simulations to show the characterized performance region (the approximate Pareto frontier) of a network, and demonstrate that the designed protocol can achieve the performance region while existing protocols exhibit a substantial gap.
In our previous paper [D. Gon\ifmmode \mbox{\c{t}}\else \c{t}\fi{}a and P. van Loock, Phys. Rev. A 84, 042303 (2011)], we proposed an efficient scheme to purify dynamically a bipartite entangled state using short chains of atoms coupled to high-finesse optical cavities. In contrast to conventional entanglement purification protocols, we avoid controlled-not gates and thus reduce complicated pulse sequences and superfluous qubit operations. In this paper, we significantly improve the output fidelity of remotely entangled atoms by introducing one additional entanglement protocol in each of the repeater nodes and by optimizing the laser beams required to control the entire scheme. Our improved distillation scheme yields an almost-unit output fidelity that, together with the entanglement distribution and swapping, opens an attractive route towards an efficient and experimentally feasible quantum repeater for long-distance quantum communication.
With the emergence of the Quantum Internet, the need for advanced quantum networking techniques has significantly risen. Various models of quantum repeaters have been presented, each delineating a unique strategy to ensure quantum communication over long distances. We focus on repeaters that employ entanglement generation and swapping. This revolves around establishing remote end-to-end entanglement through repeaters, a concept we denote as the “quantum-native” repeaters (also called “first-generation” repeaters in some literature). The challenges in routing with quantum-native repeaters arise from probabilistic entanglement generation and restricted coherence time. Current approaches use synchronized time slots to search for entanglement-swapping paths, resulting in inefficiencies. Here, we propose a new set of asynchronous routing protocols for quantum networks by incorporating the idea of maintaining a dynamic topology in a distributed manner, which has been extensively studied in classical routing for lossy networks, such as using a destination-oriented directed acyclic graph or a spanning tree. The protocols update the entanglement-link topology asynchronously, identify optimal entanglement-swapping paths, and preserve unused direct-link entanglements. Our results indicate that asynchronous protocols achieve a larger upper bound with an appropriate setting and significantly higher entanglement rate than existing synchronous approaches, and the rate increases with coherence time, suggesting that it will have a much more profound impact on quantum networks as technology advances.
The vision of a global network that enables quantum communications between any point on Earth is known as the quantum internet. One crucial element of this network is the use of quantum repeater chains, which have the potential to overcome transmission losses and implement entanglement or quantum key distribution protocols over extended distances. There are various proposals for quantum repeaters, but they can generally be evaluated based on two main figures of merit: the average time for end-to-end entanglement delivery and the associated average fidelity. However, characterizing these quantities can be difficult due to factors such as feedback loops, decoherence, entanglement generation being a probabilistic process, and the potential failure of subprotocols. In this talk, I will discuss algorithmic and analytical methods for computing these quantities for relevant families of protocols.