Adaptive, Continuous Entanglement Generation for Quantum Networks

Abstract: Quantum networks, which enable the transfer of quantum information across long distances, promise to provide exciting benefits and new possibilities in many areas including communication, computation, security, and metrology. These networks rely on entanglement between qubits at distant nodes to transmit information; however, creation of these quantum links is not dependent on the information to be transmitted. Researchers have explored schemes for continuous generation of entanglement, where network nodes may generate entanglement links before receiving user requests. In this paper we present an adaptive scheme that uses information from previous requests to better guide the choice of randomly generated quantum links before future requests are received. We analyze parameter spaces where such a scheme may provide benefit and observe an increase in performance of up to 75% over other continuous schemes on single-bottleneck and autonomous systems networks. We also test the scheme for other parameter choices and observe continued benefits of up to 95%. The power of our adaptive scheme on a randomized request queue is demonstrated on a single-bottleneck topology. We also explore quantum memory allocation scenarios, where a difference in latency performance implies the necessity of optimal allocation of resources for quantum networks.