Towards Efficient Resource Allocation and Request Scheduling in Quantum Networks

Computer Engineering

Quantum networking is a new field for study, to see what it can do. It works by linking quantum systems, by making a path of connected qubits from one end to the other using repeaters that can work over long distances. People have made a good design in the past that can keep the link between two quantum devices separated by time, using a method called time slot. They break up the process of making an end-to-end path into two parts: path choosing and timing. Path choosing finds the best repeaters to link the two ends, but only if they are already entangled well. Timing finds which pairs of ends get serviced in each time slot and which have to wait for later slots. No one has studied timing much before, especially when quantum noise is part of the system, which makes both tasks even harder. We plan to solve this with a set of simple algorithms, three of which we give examples of here. The goal is to keep delay low and system use high, meaning lots of entangled qubits with good quality and rate, from a single source to the many quantum devices the system connects. We test our idea using detailed simulations of quantum networks with noise, using different layouts of nodes and requests arriving randomly as in the real world. Our results show there is a trade-off at the system level between fairness for the applications and the quality of the entanglements, including the rate and fidelity.

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