Entanglement-Based Artificial Topology: Neighboring Remote Network Nodes

TL;DR

This paper explores how multipartite entanglement can be used to create dynamic, artificial network topologies between quantum local area networks, enabling flexible interconnections beyond physical limitations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to engineer multipartite entangled states for interconnecting quantum networks and dynamically adapting to traffic patterns.

Findings

Multipartite entanglement enables artificial topology creation.

Dynamic inter-QLAN connections are achievable with local operations.

The approach overcomes physical topology limitations.

Abstract

Entanglement is unanimously recognized as the key communication resource of the Quantum Internet. Yet, the possibility of implementing novel network functionalities by exploiting the marvels of entanglement has been poorly investigated so far, by mainly restricting the attention to bipartite entanglement. Conversely, in this paper, we aim at exploiting multipartite entanglement as inter-network resource. Specifically, we consider the interconnection of different Quantum Local Area Networks (QLANs), and we show that multipartite entanglement allows to dynamically generate an inter-QLAN artificial topology, by means of local operations only, that overcomes the limitations of the physical QLAN topologies. To this aim, we first design the multipartite entangled state to be distributed within each QLAN. Then, we show how such a state can be engineered to: i) interconnect nodes belonging to different QLANs, and ii) dynamically adapt to different inter-QLAN traffic patterns. Our contribution aims at providing the network engineering community with a hands-on guideline towards the concept of artificial topology and artificial neighborhood.