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Open Physics

Partition-based entanglement swapping: a balanced approach for latency and resource consumption in airborne quantum networks

Ya Wang, Haoran Hu, Zhi-Feng Deng, Jia-Hao Li, Jie Tang, Ying Liu, Heng Zhang, Yuexiang Cao, Huicun Yu, Xing-Yu Wang, Jia-Hua Wei, Lei Shi

Published Jan 1, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Wireless quantum networking is essential for constructing wide-area quantum communication systems, especially for air-borne platforms that face strict resource constraints and stringent latency requirements. This paper presents a hierarchical space-air-ground integrated quantum communication architecture with a dedicated relay backbone and regional access networks, which is well adapted to dynamic airborne quantum network scenarios. To address the trade-off between latency and resource consumption in long-distance entanglement distribution, we propose a novel partition-based entanglement swapping scheme. The scheme divides long distribution paths into multiple segments, using parallel swapping within segments to reduce latency and sequential swapping across segments to conserve entanglement resources. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme reduces average latency by 60 % compared with the sequential scheme, while consuming significantly fewer resources than the parallel scheme. With adjustable partition sizes, it can flexibly meet diverse application demands and provides an efficient solution for resource-constrained airborne quantum networks.

DOI
10.1515/phys-2025-0318

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Abstract Wireless quantum networking is essential for constructing wide-area quantum communication systems, especially for air-borne platforms that face strict resource constraints and stringent latency requirements. This paper presents a hierarchical space-air-ground integrated quantum communication architecture with a dedicated relay backbone and regional access networks, which is well adapted to dynamic airborne quantum network scenarios. To address the trade-off between latency and resource consumption in long-distance entanglement distribution, we propose a novel partition-based entanglement swapping scheme. The scheme divides long distribution paths into multiple segments, using parallel swapping within segments to reduce latency and sequential swapping across segments to conserve entanglement resources. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme reduces average latency by 60 % compared with the sequential scheme, while consuming significantly fewer resources than the parallel scheme. With adjustable partition sizes, it can flexibly meet diverse application demands and provides an efficient solution for resource-constrained airborne quantum networks.
Entanglement swapping is a crucial step in quantum communication, generating long-distance entanglements between quantum users for quantum network applications, such as distributed quantum computing. This study focuses on the efficiency of entanglement swapping strategies in quantum networks, particularly in multi-user concurrent quantum communication. Since multi-user concurrent quantum communication consists of multiple point-to-point quantum communications, we first analyze the challenges faced by existing entanglement swapping strategies in this scenario and then propose Parallel Segment Entanglement Swapping (PSES) to address them. PSES utilizes a tree-like model to divide the path into segments and execute entanglement swapping in parallel across them, thereby enhancing the generation rate of long-distance entanglement. Furthermore, we analyze the impact of resource contention on entanglement swapping in multi-user concurrent quantum communication and propose Multi-user PSES (M-PSES) to alleviate this negative impact. M-PSES leverages the entanglement swapping trigger signal and resource locking mechanisms to mitigate resource contention. The simulation results show that PSES performs superiorly to existing entanglement swapping strategies in point-to-point quantum communication, and M-PSES can achieve better performance than PSES in multi-user concurrent quantum communication.
Entanglement distribution between distant quantum nodes plays an essential role in realizing quantum networks’ capabilities. In addition to path selection, remote entanglement distribution involves two pivotal quantum operations, i.e., entanglement generation and entanglement swapping. The existing studies mainly adopt two methods, i.e., Tell-and-Generation (TAG) and Tell-and-Swapping (TAS), to manage these two quantum operations on a selected path. However, both methods fatally introduce redundant stop-and-wait processes, which are detrimental to the performance of remote entanglement distribution in terms of latency and fidelity. To achieve low-latency and high-fidelity entanglement distribution between far-off quantum nodes, we propose a segment-based method consisting of an entanglement generation algorithm and a segment design to diminish the unnecessary stop-and-wait processes. The entanglement generation algorithm adopts a concurrent design to establish entanglement links using the one-demand generation model, thus effectively reducing waiting time compared to hop-by-hop and parallel designs. The segment design is proposed to split a long-distance path into multiple short-haul segments with the similar ability to swap entanglement, and these segments build multi-hop entanglement connections in parallel. Extensive simulations show that the segment-based method significantly outperforms the existing methods, including TAG and TAS, in entanglement distribution latency and effectively mitigates fidelity attenuation.
Entanglement distribution between distant quantum nodes plays an important role in quantum networks. However, due to the unique properties of quantum mechanics and hardware limitations, entanglement resources in quantum networks are scarce. Quantum links that fail to meet request demands become bottleneck links, significantly hindering remote entanglement distribution in multi-request scenarios. In this paper, we propose an entanglement routing scheme called SwappingBoost that can effectively reduce resource consumption along entanglement distribution paths, alleviating the negative impact of bottleneck links. SwappingBoost first employs a decreasing resource reservation method to compensate for resource losses caused by failed entanglement swapping, freeing up pre-reserved resources on downstream links to accommodate other paths and requests. Besides, SwappingBoost introduces a path-priority-based rounding algorithm that achieves integer-level resource allocation while ensuring balanced resource allocation. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that SwappingBoost can effectively reduce the load of bottleneck links, enhancing network throughput while maintaining fairness among multiple requests.
In the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era, scientists are trying to improve the entanglement swapping success rate by researching anti-noise technology on the physical level, thereby obtaining a higher generation rate of long-distance entanglement. However, we may improve the generation rate from another perspective, which is studying an efficient entanglement swapping strategy. This paper analyzes the challenges faced by existing entanglement swapping strategies, including the node allocation principle, time synchronization, and processing of entanglement swapping failure. We present Parallel Segment Entanglement Swapping (PSES) to solve these problems. The core idea of PSES is to segment the path and perform parallel entanglement swapping between segments to improve the generation rate of long-distance entanglement. We construct a tree-like model as the carrier of PSES and propose heuristic algorithms called Layer Greedy and Segment Greedy to transform the path into a tree-like model. Moreover, we realize the time synchronization and design the on-demand retransmission mechanism to process entanglement swapping failure. The experiments show that PSES performs superiorly to other entanglement swapping strategies, and the on-demand retransmission mechanism can reduce the average entanglement swapping time by 80% and the average entanglement consumption by 80%.
The realization of a global quantum network capable of supporting secure communication and other quantum information processing (QIP) tasks hinges on the ability to distribute high-fidelity entanglement across long distances while optimizing resource usage. This work describes a scalable approach for building large quantum networks by connecting quantum sub-networks using entanglement backbones as interconnections and a swapping based entanglement distribution protocol. Using a statistical model for parametrized quantum sub-networks we derive a set of equations whose solutions give the optimal values of average network parameters that meet threshold requirements for QIP tasks while minimizing resource cost functions. Our analysis extends to the scenario where multiple sub-networks must be interconnected simultaneously based on the formulation of a global resource cost function. The probability of successfully satisfying the parameter thresholds of a QIP task as a function of average parameters of the sub-networks for random network demands reveals a transition from zero to full satisfiability above critical network parameter values. Moreover, we find that the satisfiability transition can be smooth or discontinuous depending on the topology of the sub-networks. Our results present a pathway for calculating optimal resource requirements in quantum sub-networks interconnected to form the global quantum internet.
Long-distance quantum communication in quantum networks faces significant challenges due to the constraints imposed by the no-cloning theorem. Most existing quantum communication protocols rely on the a priori distribution of entanglement pairs (EPs), a process known to incur considerable latency due to its stochastic nature. In this work, we consider the problem of minimizing the latency of establishing an EP across a pair of nodes in a quantum network. While prior research has primarily focused on minimizing the expected generation latency by selecting static entanglement routes and/or swapping trees in advance, our approach considers a real-time adaptive strategy-wherein the order of entanglement-swapping operations (hence, the swapping tree used) is progressively determined at runtime based on the runtime success/failure of the stochastic events. In this context, we present a greedy algorithm that iteratively determines the best route and/or entanglement-swapping operation to perform at each stage based on the current network. We evaluate our schemes on randomly generated networks and observe a reduction in latency of up to 40% from the optimal offline approach.