Design and Analysis of Communication Protocols for Quantum Repeater Networks

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how different communication protocols affect the performance of quantum repeater networks, demonstrating that protocol choice significantly impacts communication rates based on hardware parameters, with new protocols offering substantial improvements.

Contribution

It develops numerical simulation tools to analyze quantum repeater protocols, highlighting the superior performance of the MidpointSource protocol under certain hardware conditions.

Findings

MidpointSource protocol achieves higher rates at low entanglement probabilities.

Simulation tools help optimize quantum network design.

Hardware parameters like photon rate influence protocol effectiveness.

Abstract

We analyze how the performance of a quantum-repeater network depends on the protocol employed to distribute entanglement, and we find that the choice of repeater-to-repeater link protocol has a profound impact on communication rate as a function of hardware parameters. We develop numerical simulations of quantum networks using different protocols, where the repeater hardware is modeled in terms of key performance parameters, such as photon generation rate and collection efficiency. These parameters are motivated by recent experimental demonstrations in quantum dots, trapped ions, and nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. We find that a quantum-dot repeater with the newest protocol ("MidpointSource") delivers the highest communication rate when there is low probability of establishing entanglement per transmission, and in some cases the rate is orders of magnitude higher than other schemes. Our simulation tools can be used to evaluate communication protocols as part of designing a large-scale quantum network.