Control Architectures for Multi-User Quantum Networks

Abstract

The internet is a global computer network that enables a vast range of applications, including video streaming, online shopping, and remote access to powerful computing and data storage systems. These applications have transformed the logistics of everyday life for billions of people and deliver quantifiable economic benefits to society.
The internet as it exists today evolved gradually from simpler, smaller-scale networks that originally supported few applications and were accessible to relatively few users. Scaling these classical networks required substantial innovation across many areas, including the development of control architectures that allow multiple users to simultaneously execute applications with diverse and competing requirements.
Quantum computers are an emerging technology that execute applications on a state space defined by quantum mechanical systems, rather than the binary digital state space of classical computers. They can be integrated into hybrid quantum-classical
computing nodes capable of supporting both quantum and classical applications. New classes of applications have been identified that require the classical network connecting such nodes to be supplemented by an additional communication layer operating over a quantum state space. A network of hybrid quantum-classical nodes augmented in this way is called a quantum network.
In this thesis, we address the problem of developing control architectures that enable multiple users to simultaneously execute quantum network applications. This is an urgent challenge because steady technological progress on hybrid quantum nodes is bringing testbed quantum networks within practical reach. As these testbeds are constructed, they will need to be operated and opened up to serve applications from multiple users concurrently.....