Quantum Networks For Open Science

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) networks are of much interest due to their capacity of providing extremely high security keys to network participants. Most QKD network studies so far focus on trusted models where all the network nodes are assumed to be perfectly secured. This restricts QKD networks to be small. In this paper, we first develop a novel model dedicated to large-scale QKD networks, some of whose nodes could be eavesdropped secretely. Then, we investigate the key transmission problem in the new model by an approach based on percolation theory and stochastic routing. Analyses show that under computable conditions large-scale QKD networks could protect secret keys with an extremely high probability. Simulations validate our results.

arXiv (Cornell University), 2022

The quantum internet is envisioned as the ultimate stage of the quantum revolution, which surpasses its classical counterpart in various aspects, such as the efficiency of data transmission, the security of network services, and the capability of information processing. Given its disruptive impact on the national security and the digital economy, a global race to build scalable quantum networks has already begun. With the joint effort of national governments, industrial participants and research institutes, the development of quantum networks has advanced rapidly in recent years, bringing the first primitive quantum networks within reach. In this work, we aim to provide an up-to-date review of the field of quantum networks from both theoretical and experimental perspectives, contributing to a better understanding of the building blocks required for the establishment of a global quantum internet. We also introduce a newly developed quantum network toolkit to facilitate the exploration and evaluation of innovative ideas. Particularly, it provides dual quantum computing engines, supporting simulations in both the quantum circuit and measurement-based models. It also includes a compilation scheme for mapping quantum network protocols onto quantum circuits, enabling their emulations on real-world quantum hardware devices. We showcase the power of this toolkit with several featured demonstrations, including a simulation of the Micius quantum satellite experiment, a testing of a four-layer quantum network architecture with resource management, and a quantum emulation of the CHSH game. We hope this work can give a better understanding of the state-of-the-art development of quantum networks and provide the necessary tools to make further contributions along the way.

ArXiv, 2016

Communication is a key part of society that we make huge investments in. Each message has to both arrive quickly and use minimal network resources. Moreover, communications must sometimes also remain private, so encryption is used to prevent third parties from listening in. However, standard classical encryption protocols are proven not to be secure against quantum adversaries. With quantum communication we have a method that does provably attains perfect secrecy, even against adversaries with unlimited (quantum) computational power. It is, however, infeasible to have a direct quantum connection between all users of quantum communications. We thus look into the possibilities of a \emph{quantum network}, which is able to connect arbitrary users of the network as if they had direct quantum channel available. Once such a quantum network is built, we will need to route quantum messages effectively to their destination. In this work, we take the first step in studying network structures ...

2022

Quantum Information Networks (QIN) currently represent a major goal in the field quantum communication technologies. Such QINs will allow connecting quantum devices (computers, sensors, communication stations, etc) over long distances, thus improving significantly their intrinsic processing, sensing, and security capabilities. The core mechanism of a QIN is quantum state teleportation, demonstrated more than two decades ago, that consumes quantum entanglement which can be seen in this context as a new kind of network resource. This paper is the result of the collaboration under the auspices of the French Space agency (CNES) of academic research and a Space telecom industry actor that has defined and now executes a long term roadmap towards operational QINs. Here, we address the key elements of this roadmap and describe the stage we have reached in its execution. First, we identify and quantitatively describe use cases per activity sector as a reference for the requirements on the QI...

arXiv (Cornell University), 2023

In this study, we develop a resource management framework for a quantum virtual private network (qVPN), which involves the sharing of an underlying public quantum network by multiple organizations for quantum entanglement distribution. Our approach involves resolving the issue of link entanglement resource allocation in a qVPN by utilizing a centralized optimization framework. We provide insights into the potential of genetic and learning-based algorithms for optimizing qVPNs, and emphasize the significance of path selection and distillation in enabling efficient and reliable quantum communication in multiorganizational settings. Our findings demonstrate that compared to traditional greedy based heuristics, genetic and learningbased algorithms can identify better paths. Furthermore, these algorithms can effectively identify good distillation strategies to mitigate potential noises in gates and quantum channels, while ensuring the necessary quality of service for end users.

International Journal of Information Dissemination And Technology, 2021

The study examines the global research in the domain of quantum communication & networking (QCN) to assess and evaluate the research performance of stakeholders based on quantitative and qualitative metrics. As seen from the Scopus database, the global research in the subject resulted in a total of 2332 papers during 1997-20. The global research received a total of 67588 citations since publication, involved the participation of 74 countries in global research, 626 organizations, and 878 authors. The global research appeared across 189 journals. The study observed that China and the USA lead the global research in QCN, accounting for (37.82%) and a (17.92%), global share respectively. The study tracks, key research organizations, key authors, key research areas, most significant keywords, most cited papers, and most productive source journals. The study also presents visual maps of collaborative networks involving key countries, institutions, authors, and significant keywords in QCN research.

2019

We introduce the NIST Platform for Quantum Network Innovation (PQNI)-a new testbed on the NIST campus to accelerate the integration of quantum systems into a real life, active network in a controlled scientific setting. The testbed will be used to evaluate quantum scale devices and components such as single photon sources, detectors, memories and interfaces within various quantum network protocols and configurations for performance, optimization, synchronization, loss compensation, error correction, compatibility with conventional network traffic (often referred to as coexistence), continuity of operations and more.

2019

Emerging quantum technologies will impact industry and society at large, but how and to what extent we do not know yet. That is why a TU Delft Quantum Vision team set about exploring this impact, with a special focus on quantum internet as the first technology that is likely to become reality.

2022

Quantum communications is a promising technology that will play a fundamental role in the design of future networks. In fact, significant efforts are being dedicated by both the quantum physics and the classical communications communities on developing new architectures, solutions, and practical implementations of quantum communication networks (QCNs). Although these efforts led to various advances in today's technologies, there still exists a non-trivial gap between the research efforts of the two communities on designing and optimizing the performance of QCNs. For instance, most prior works by the classical communications community ignore important quantum physics-based constraints when designing QCNs. For example, many existing works on entanglement distribution do not account for the decoherence of qubits inside quantum memories and, thus, their designs become impractical since they assume an infinite lifetime of quantum states. In this paper, we bring forth a novel analysis of the performance of QCNs in a physicsinformed manner, by relying on the quantum physics principles that underly the different components of QCNs. The need of the physics-informed approach is then assessed and its fundamental role in designing practical QCNs is analyzed across various open research areas. Moreover, we identify novel physics-informed performance metrics and controls that enable QCNs to leverage the state-of-the-art advancements in quantum technologies to enhance their performance. Finally, we analyze multiple pressing challenges and open research directions in QCNs that must be treated using a physics-informed approach to lead practically viable results. Ultimately, this work attempts to bridge the gap between the classical communications and the quantum physics communities in the area of QCNs to foster the development of the future communication networks towards the quantum Internet.

2017

The future of the Internet and of computer communication goes through modern physics. Using the new properties of quantum mechanics, various research laboratories around the world are building prototypes of "quantum networks", a new way that uses some quantum physics principles to deliver information packets. In the near future our data will be able to travel on the Internet at very high speed, also greater than the speed of light, thanks to the quantum network. Independent research groups have already been able to demonstrate the entanglement of photons on fiber optic networks in China and Canada. The result can be considered as the first step for the realization of quantum telematic networks on a metropolitan scale and the connection at large distances of future computers based on quantum physics. But the quantum computer will be such a powerful system that can even damage the security of our systems and networks as we know them today, as well as to personal privacy, alr...