Entanglement distribution with minimal memory requirements using time-bin photonic qudits

TL;DR

This paper introduces a protocol using high-dimensional time-bin photonic qudits to generate multiple entangled pairs efficiently, reducing memory requirements and enhancing quantum network performance.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel qudit-based protocol for entanglement distribution that minimizes memory needs and is feasible with cavity-mediated spin-photon interactions.

Findings

Memory time is independent of transmission loss.

Protocol enables simultaneous generation of multiple entangled pairs.

Significantly improves near-term quantum network performance.

Abstract

Generating multiple entangled qubit pairs between distributed nodes is a prerequisite for a future quantum internet. To achieve a practicable generation rate, standard protocols based on photonic qubits require multiple long-term quantum memories, which remains a significant experimental challenge. In this paper, we propose a novel protocol based on $2^m$-dimensional time-bin photonic qudits that allow for the simultaneous generation of multiple ($m$) entangled pairs between two distributed qubit registers and outline a specific implementation of the protocol based on cavity-mediated spin-photon interactions. By adopting the qudit protocol, the required qubit memory time is independent of the transmission loss between the nodes in contrast to standard qubit approaches. As such, our protocol can significantly boost the performance of near-term quantum networks.