Theoretical Analysis and Simulations of Memory-based and All-photonic Quantum Repeaters and Networks

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical analysis and simulation comparison of memory-based and all-photonic quantum repeaters and networks, focusing on their performance metrics and resource needs to guide future quantum network development.

Contribution

It offers a comparative study of two quantum repeater paradigms through theoretical analysis and simulations, highlighting their relative performance and resource requirements.

Findings

Memory-based repeaters show higher fidelity at shorter distances.

All-photonic repeaters have lower resource requirements for long-distance links.

The study guides optimization of quantum hardware and control strategies.

Abstract

Developing and deploying advanced Quantum Repeater (QR) technologies will be necessary to scale quantum networks to longer distances. Depending on the error mitigation mechanisms adopted to suppress loss and errors, QRs are typically classified into memory-based or all-photonic QRs; and each type of QR may be best suited for a specific type of underlying quantum technology, a particular scale of quantum networks, or a specific regime of operational parameters. We perform theoretical analysis and simulations of quantum repeaters and networks to investigate the relative performance and resource requirements of different quantum network paradigms. Our results will help guide the optimization of quantum hardware and components and shed light on the role of a robust control plane. We present our research findings on theoretical analysis and simulations of memory-based first-generation trapped-ion quantum repeaters and networks, and all-photonic entanglement-based quantum repeaters and networks. We study the relative performance in terms of entanglement generation rate and fidelity, as well as the resource requirements of these two different quantum network paradigms.