skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: On the Capacity Region of Bipartite and Tripartite Entanglement Switching
We study a quantum entanglement distribution switch serving a set of users in a star topology with equal-length links. The quantum switch, much like a quantum repeater, can perform entanglement swapping to extend entanglement across longer distances. Additionally, the switch is equipped with entanglement switching logic, enabling it to implement switching policies to better serve the needs of the network. In this work, the function of the switch is to create bipartite or tripartite entangled states among users at the highest possible rates at a fixed ratio. Using Markov chains, we model a set of randomized switching policies. Discovering that some are better than others, we present analytical results for the case where the switch stores one qubit per user, and find that the best policies outperform a time division multiplexing policy for sharing the switch between bipartite and tripartite state generation. This performance improvement decreases as the number of users grows. The model is easily augmented to study the capacity region in the presence of quantum state decoherence and associated cut-off times for qubit storage, obtaining similar results. Moreover, decoherence-associated quantum storage cut-off times appear to have little effect on capacity in our identical-link system. We also study a smaller class of policies when the switch stores two qubits per user.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1955744
PAR ID:
10434812
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
ACM Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems
Volume:
8
Issue:
1-2
ISSN:
2376-3639
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 18
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Hemmer, Philip R.; Migdall, Alan L. (Ed.)
    We study a quantum switch that creates shared end-to-end entangled quantum states to multiple sets of users that are connected to it. Each user is connected to the switch via an optical link across which bipartite Bell-state entangled states are generated in each time-slot with certain probabilities, and the switch merges entanglements of links to create end-to-end entanglements for users. One qubit of an entanglement of a link is stored at the switch and the other qubit of the entanglement is stored at the user corresponding to the link. Assuming that qubits of entanglements of links decipher after one time-slot, we characterize the capacity region, which is defined as the set of arrival rates of requests for end-to-end entanglements for which there exists a scheduling policy that stabilizes the switch. We propose a Max-Weight scheduling policy and show that it stabilizes the switch for all arrival rates that lie in the capacity region. We also provide numerical results to support our analysis. 
    more » « less
  2. Quantum switches are envisioned to be an integral component of future entanglement distribution networks. They can provide high quality entanglement distribution service to end-users by performing quantum operations such as entanglement swapping and entanglement purification. In this work, we characterize the capacity region of such a quantum switch under noisy channel transmissions and imperfect quantum operations. We express the capacity region as a function of the channel and network parameters (link and entanglement swap success probability), entanglement purification yield and application level parameters (target fidelity threshold). In particular, we provide necessary conditions to verify if a set of request rates belong to the capacity region of the switch. We use these conditions to find the maximum achievable end-to-end user entanglement generation throughput by solving a set of linear optimization problems. We develop a max-weight scheduling policy and prove that the policy stabilizes the switch for all feasible request arrival rates. As we develop scheduling policies, we also generate new results for computing the conditional yield distribution of different classes of purification protocols. The conclusions obtained in this work can yield useful guidelines for subsequent quantum switch designs. 
    more » « less
  3. Abstract We study the capacity of entanglement as an alternative to entanglement entropies in estimating the degree of entanglement of quantum bipartite systems over fermionic Gaussian states. In particular, we derive the exact and asymptotic formulas of average capacity of two different cases—with and without particle number constraints. For the later case, the obtained formulas generalize some partial results of average capacity in the literature. The key ingredient in deriving the results is a set of new tools for simplifying finite summations developed very recently in the study of entanglement entropy of fermionic Gaussian states. 
    more » « less
  4. Quantum repeaters are necessary to fully realize the capabilities of the emerging quantum internet, especially applications involving distributing entanglement across long distances. A more general notion of this can be called a quantum switch, which connects to many users and can act as a repeater to create end-to-end entanglement between different subsets of these users. Here we present a method of calculating the capacity region of both discrete- and continuous-variable quantum switches that in general support mixed-partite entanglement generation. The method uses tools from convex analysis to generate the boundaries of the capacity region. We show example calculations with illustrative topologies and perform simulations to support the analytical results. 
    more » « less
  5. We consider the problem of multipath entanglement distribution to a pair of nodes in a quantum network consisting of devices with nondeterministic entanglement swapping capabilities. Multipath entanglement distribution enables a network to establish end-to-end entangled links across any number of available paths with preestablished link-level entanglement. Probabilistic entanglement swapping, on the other hand, limits the amount of entanglement that is shared between the nodes; this is especially the case when, due to practical constraints, swaps must be performed in temporal proximity to each other. Limiting our focus to the case where only bipartite entanglement is generated across the network, we cast the problem as an instance of generalized flow maximization between two quantum end nodes wishing to communicate. We propose a mixed-integer quadratically constrained program (MIQCP) to solve this flow problem for networks with arbitrary topology. We then compute the overall network capacity, defined as the maximum number of Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) states distributed to users per time unit, by solving the flow problem for all possible network states generated by probabilistic entangled link presence and absence, and subsequently by averaging over all network state capacities. The MIQCP can also be applied to networks with multiplexed links. While our approach for computing the overall network capacity has the undesirable property that the total number of states grows exponentially with link multiplexing capability, it nevertheless yields an exact solution that serves as an upper bound comparison basis for the throughput performance of more easily implementable yet nonoptimal entanglement routing algorithms. 
    more » « less