Designing Quantum Networks Using Preexisting Infrastructure

TL;DR

This paper presents an ILP-based method for deploying quantum repeaters on existing fiber networks to optimize entanglement performance, demonstrated on both synthetic and real-world topologies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ILP approach for minimal repeater placement in preexisting fiber infrastructure, ensuring quantum communication requirements are met.

Findings

Method performs well for networks up to 100 nodes.

Effective on both synthetic and real-world fiber topologies.

Reduces the number of repeaters needed for reliable quantum links.

Abstract

We consider the problem of deploying a quantum network on an existing fiber infrastructure, where quantum repeaters and end nodes can only be housed at specific locations. We propose a method based on integer linear programming (ILP) to place the minimal number of repeaters on such an existing network topology, such that requirements on end-to-end entanglement-generation rate and fidelity between any pair of end-nodes are satisfied. While ILPs are generally difficult to solve, we show that our method performs well in practice for networks of up to 100 nodes. We illustrate the behavior of our method both on randomly-generated network topologies, as well as on a real-world fiber topology deployed in the Netherlands.