We numerically study the distribution of entanglement between the Dutch cities of Delft and Eindhoven realized with a processing-node quantum repeater and determine minimal hardware requirements for verifiable blind quantum computation using color centers and trapped ions. Our results are obtained considering restrictions imposed by a real-world fiber grid and using detailed hardware-specific models. By comparing our results to those we would obtain in idealized settings, we show that simplifications lead to a distorted picture of hardware demands, particularly on memory coherence and photon collection. We develop general machinery suitable for studying arbitrary processing-node repeater chains using NetSquid, a discrete-event simulator for quantum networks. This enables us to include time-dependent noise models and simulate repeater protocols with cut-offs, including the required classical control communication. We find minimal hardware requirements by solving an optimization problem using genetic algorithms on a high-performance-computing cluster. Our work provides guidance for further experimental progress, and showcases limitations of studying quantum-repeater requirements in idealized situations.

The past decade has seen tremendous progress in experimentally realizing the building blocks of quantum repeaters. Repeater architectures with multiplexed quantum memories have been proposed to increase entanglement distribution rates, but an open challenge is to maintain entanglement fidelity over long-distance links. Here, we address this with a quantum router architecture comprising many quantum memories connected in a photonic switchboard to broker entanglement flows across quantum networks. We compute the rate and fidelity of entanglement distribution under this architecture using an event-based simulator, finding that the router improves the entanglement fidelity as multiplexing depth increases without a significant drop in the entanglement distribution rate. Specifically, the router permits channel-loss-invariant fidelity, i.e. the same fidelity achievable with lossless links. Furthermore, this scheme automatically prioritizes entanglement flows across the full network without requiring global network information. The proposed architecture uses present-day photonic technology, opening a path to near-term deployable multi-node quantum networks.

Quantum communication research has in recent years shifted to include multipartite networks for which questions of quantum network routing naturally emerge. To understand the potential for multipartite routing, we focus on the most promising architectures for future quantum networks-those connecting nodes close to each other. Nearest-neighbor networks, such as rings, lines, and grids, have been studied under different communication scenarios to facilitate the sharing of quantum resources especially in the presence of bottlenecks. We analyze the potential of nearest-neighbor entangling gate quantum networks and identify some serious limitations by demonstrating that rings and lines cannot overcome common bottleneck communication problems.

A graph H is a vertex-minor of a graph G if it can be reached from G by the successive application of local complementations and vertex deletions. Vertex-minors have been the subject of intense study in graph theory over the last decades and have found applications in other fields such as quantum information theory. Therefore it is natural to consider the computational complexity of deciding whether a given graph G has a vertex-minor isomorphic to another graph H. Here we prove that this decision problem is NP-complete, even when restricting H and G to be circle graphs, a class of graphs that has a natural relation to vertex-minors.

In order to bring quantum networks into the real world, we would like to determine the requirements of quantum network protocols including the underlying quantum hardware. Because detailed architecture proposals are generally too complex for mathematical analysis, it is natural to employ numerical simulation. Here we introduce NetSquid, the NETwork Simulator for QUantum Information using Discrete events, a discrete-event based platform for simulating all aspects of quantum networks and modular quantum computing systems, ranging from the physical layer and its control plane up to the application level. We study several use cases to showcase NetSquid’s power, including detailed physical layer simulations of repeater chains based on nitrogen vacancy centres in diamond as well as atomic ensembles. We also study the control plane of a quantum switch beyond its analytically known regime, and showcase NetSquid’s ability to investigate large networks by simulating entanglement distribution over a chain of up to one thousand nodes.

Graph states, and the entanglement they posses, are central to modern quantum computing and communications architectures. Local complementation-the graph operation that links all local-Clifford equivalent graph states-allows us to classify all stabiliser states by their entanglement. Here, we study the structure of the orbits generated by local complementation, mapping them up to 9 qubits and revealing a rich hidden structure. We provide programs to compute these orbits, along with our data for each of the 587 orbits up to 9 qubits and a means to visualise them. We find direct links between the connectivity of certain orbits with the entanglement properties of their component graph states. Furthermore, we observe the correlations between graph-theoretical orbit properties, such as diameter and colourability, with Schmidt measure and preparation complexity and suggest potential applications. It is well known that graph theory and quantum entanglement have strong interplay-our exploration deepens this relationship, providing new tools with which to probe the nature of entanglement.

Critical to the construction of large scale quantum networks, i.e. a quantum internet, is the development of fast algorithms for managing entanglement present in the network. One fundamental building block for a quantum internet is the distribution of Bell pairs between distant nodes in the network. Here we focus on the problem of transforming multipartite entangled states into the tensor product of bipartite Bell pairs between specific nodes using only a certain class of local operations and classical communication. In particular we study the problem of deciding whether a given graph state, and in general a stabilizer state, can be transformed into a set of Bell pairs on specific vertices using only single-qubit Clifford operations, single-qubit Pauli measurements and classical communication. We prove that this problem is NP-Complete.

Graph states, which include Bell states, Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states, and cluster states, form a well-known class of quantum states with applications ranging from quantum networks to error-correction. Whether two graph states are equivalent up to single-qubit Clifford operations is known to be decidable in polynomial time and has been studied in the context of producing certain required states in a quantum network in relation to stabilizer codes. The reason for the latter is that single-qubit Clifford equivalent graph states exactly correspond to equivalent stabilizer codes. We here consider that the computational complexity of, given a graph state |G«, counting the number of graph states, single-qubit Clifford equivalent to |G«. We show that this problem is #P-complete. To prove our main result, we make use of the notion of isotropic systems in graph theory. We review the definition of isotropic systems and point out their strong relation to graph states. We believe that these isotropic systems can be useful beyond the results presented in this paper.

Graph states are ubiquitous in quantum information with diverse applications ranging from quantum network protocols to measurement based quantum computing. Here we consider the question whether one graph (source) state can be transformed into another graph (target) state, using a specific set of quantum operations (LC + LPM + CC): single-qubit Clifford operations (LC), single-qubit Pauli measurements (LPM) and classical communication (CC) between sites holding the individual qubits. This question is of interest for effective routing or state preparation decisions in a quantum network or distributed quantum processor and also in the design of quantum repeater schemes and quantum error-correction codes. We first show that deciding whether a graph state |G) can be transformed into another graph state |G) using LC + LPM + CC is NP-complete, which was previously not known. We also show that the problem remains NP-complete even if |G) is restricted to be the GHZ-state. However, we also provide efficient algorithms for two situations of practical interest. Our results make use of the insight that deciding whether a graph state |G) can be transformed to another graph state |G) is equivalent to a known decision problem in graph theory, namely the problem of deciding whether a graph G' is a vertex-minor of a graph G. The computational complexity of the vertex-minor problem was prior to this paper an open question in graph theory. We prove that the vertex-minor problem is NP-complete by relating it to a new decision problem on 4-regular graphs which we call the semi-ordered Eulerian tour problem.

We present an architecture for multiplexed quantum repeaters using local connectivity to improve fidelity in entanglement distribution. Simulations indicate our scheme achieves rates comparable to competing schemes, with fidelity improvements that increase with repeater size.

Quantum communication brings radically new capabilities that are provably impossible to attain in any classical network. Here, we take the first step from a physics experiment to a quantum internet system. We propose a functional allocation of a quantum network stack, and construct the first physical and link layer protocols that turn ad-hoc physics experiments producing heralded entanglement between quantum processors into a well-defined and robust service. This lays the groundwork for designing and implementing scalable control and application protocols in platform-independent software. To design our protocol, we identify use cases, as well as fundamental and technological design considerations of quantum network hardware, illustrated by considering the state-of-the-art quantum processor platform available to us (Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in diamond). Using a purpose built discrete-event simulator for quantum networks, we examine the robustness and performance of our protocol using extensive simulations on a supercomputing cluster. We perform a full implementation of our protocol in our simulator, where we successfully validate the physical simulation model against data gathered from the NV hardware. We first observe that our protocol is robust even in a regime of exaggerated losses of classical control messages with only little impact on the performance of the system. We proceed to study the performance of our protocols for 169 distinct simulation scenarios, including trade-offs between traditional performance metrics such as throughput, and the quality of entanglement. Finally, we initiate the study of quantum network scheduling strategies to optimize protocol performance for different use cases.

Stabilizer states form an important class of states in quantum information, and are of central importance in quantum error correction. Here, we provide an algorithm for deciding whether one stabilizer (target) state can be obtained from another stabilizer (source) state by single-qubit Clifford operations (LC), single-qubit Pauli measurements (LPM) and classical communication (CC) between sites holding the individual qubits. What is more, we provide a recipe to obtain the sequence of LC + LPM + CC operations which prepare the desired target state from the source state, and show how these operations can be applied in parallel to reach the target state in constant time. Our algorithm has applications in quantum networks, quantum computing, and can also serve as a design tool-for example, to find transformations between quantum error correcting codes. We provide a software implementation of our algorithm that makes this tool easier to apply. A key insight leading to our algorithm is to show that the problem is equivalent to one in graph theory, which is to decide whether some graph G is a vertex-minor of another graph G. The vertex-minor problem is, in general, NP-Complete, but can be solved efficiently on graphs which are not too complex. A measure of the complexity of a graph is the rank-width which equals the Schmidt-rank width of a subclass of stabilizer states called graph states, and thus intuitively is a measure of entanglement. Here, we show that the vertex-minor problem can be solved in time O(|G|3), where |G| is the size of the graph G, whenever the rank-width of G and the size of G are bounded. Our algorithm is based on techniques by Courcelle for solving fixed parameter tractable problems, where here the relevant fixed parameter is the rank width. The second half of this paper serves as an accessible but far from exhausting introduction to these concepts, that could be useful for many other problems in quantum information. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Foundations of quantum mechanics and their impact on contemporary society'.