Architecture and protocols for all-photonic quantum repeaters

An all-photonic repeater scheme based on a type of graph state called a repeater graph state (RGS) promises tolerance to photon losses as well as operational errors, and offers a fast Bell pair generation rate, limited only by the RGS creation time (rather than enforced round-trip waits). Prior research on the topic has focused on the RGS generation and analyzing the secret key sharing rate, but there is a need to extend to use cases such as distributed computation or teleportation as will be used in a general-purpose Quantum Internet. Here, we propose a protocol and architecture that consider how end nodes participate in the connection; the capabilities and responsibilities of each node; the classical communications between nodes; and the Pauli frame correction information per end-to-end Bell pair. We give graphical reasoning on the correctness of the protocol via graph state manipulation rules. We then show that the RGS scheme is well suited to use in a link architecture connecting memory-based repeaters and end nodes for applications beyond secret sharing. Finally, we discuss the practicality of implementing our proposed protocol on quantum network simulators and how it can be integrated into an existing proposed quantum network architecture.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, comments welcom

Lower Bounds on Number of QAOA Rounds Required for Guaranteed Approximation Ratios

The quantum alternating operator ansatz (QAOA) is a heuristic hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for finding high-quality approximate solutions to combinatorial optimization problems, such as Maximum Satisfiability. While QAOA is well-studied, theoretical results as to its runtime or approximation ratio guarantees are still relatively sparse. We provide some of the first lower bounds for the number of rounds (the dominant component of QAOA runtimes) required for QAOA. For our main result, (i) we leverage a connection between quantum annealing times and the angles of QAOA to derive a lower bound on the number of rounds of QAOA with respect to the guaranteed approximation ratio. We apply and calculate this bound with Grover-style mixing unitaries and (ii) show that this type of QAOA requires at least a polynomial number of rounds to guarantee any constant approximation ratios for most problems. We also (iii) show that the bound depends only on the statistical values of the objective functions, and when the problem can be modeled as a $k$-local Hamiltonian, can be easily estimated from the coefficients of the Hamiltonians. For the conventional transverse field mixer, (iv) our framework gives a trivial lower bound to all bounded occurrence local cost problems and all strictly $k$-local cost Hamiltonians matching known results that constant approximation ratio is obtainable with constant round QAOA for a few optimization problems from these classes. Using our novel proof framework, (v) we recover the Grover lower bound for unstructured search and -- with small modification -- show that our bound applies to any QAOA-style search protocol that starts in the ground state of the mixing unitaries.Comment: 24 pages, comments welcome, v3: correct some phrasing; results stay unchange

A Substrate Scheduler for Compiling Arbitrary Fault-tolerant Graph States

Graph states are useful computational resources in quantum computing, particularly in measurement-based quantum computing models. However, compiling arbitrary graph states into executable form for fault-tolerant surface code execution and accurately estimating the compilation cost and the run-time resource cost remains an open problem. We introduce the Substrate Scheduler, a compiler module designed for fault-tolerant graph state compilation. The Substrate Scheduler aims to minimize the space-time volume cost of generating graph states. We show that Substrate Scheduler can efficiently compile graph states with thousands of vertices for "A Game of Surface Codes"-style patch-based surface code systems. Our results show that our module generates graph states with the lowest execution time complexity to date, achieving graph state generation time complexity that is at or below linear in the number of vertices and demonstrating specific types of graphs to have constant generation time complexity. Moreover, it provides a solid foundation for developing compilers that can handle a larger number of vertices, up to the millions or billions needed to accommodate a wide range of post-classical quantum computing applications.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

A Quantum Internet Architecture

Entangled quantum communication is advancing rapidly, with laboratory and metropolitan testbeds under development, but to date there is no unifying Quantum Internet architecture. We propose a Quantum Internet architecture centered around the Quantum Recursive Network Architecture (QRNA), using RuleSet-based connections established using a two-pass connection setup. Scalability and internetworking (for both technological and administrative boundaries) are achieved using recursion in naming and connection control. In the near term, this architecture will support end-to-end, two-party entanglement on minimal hardware, and it will extend smoothly to multi-party entanglement and the use of quantum error correction on advanced hardware in the future. For a network internal gateway protocol, we recommend (but do not require) qDijkstra with seconds per Bell pair as link cost for routing; the external gateway protocol is designed to build recursively. The strength of our architecture is shown by assessing extensibility and demonstrating how robust protocol operation can be confirmed using the RuleSet paradigm.Comment: 17 pages, 7 numbered figure

QuISP: a Quantum Internet Simulation Package

We present an event-driven simulation package called QuISP for large-scale quantum networks built on top of the OMNeT++ discrete event simulation framework. Although the behavior of quantum networking devices have been revealed by recent research, it is still an open question how they will work in networks of a practical size. QuISP is designed to simulate large-scale quantum networks to investigate their behavior under realistic, noisy and heterogeneous configurations. The protocol architecture we propose enables studies of different choices for error management and other key decisions. Our confidence in the simulator is supported by comparing its output to analytic results for a small network. A key reason for simulation is to look for emergent behavior when large numbers of individually characterized devices are combined. QuISP can handle thousands of qubits in dozens of nodes on a laptop computer, preparing for full Quantum Internet simulation. This simulator promotes the development of protocols for larger and more complex quantum networks.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figure

Amplitude Amplification for Optimization via Subdivided Phase Oracle

We propose an algorithm using a modified variant of amplitude amplification to solve combinatorial optimization problems via the use of a subdivided phase oracle. Instead of dividing input states into two groups and shifting the phase equally for all states within the same group, the subdivided phase oracle changes the phase of each input state uniquely in proportion to their objective value. We provide visualization of how amplitudes change after each iteration of applying the subdivided phase oracle followed by conventional Grover diffusion in the complex plane. We then show via numerical simulation that for normal, skew normal, and exponential distribution of objective values, the algorithm can be used to amplify the probability of measuring the optimal solution to a significant degree independent of the search space size. In the case of skew normal and exponential distributions, this probability can be amplified to be close to unity, making our algorithm near deterministic. We then modify our algorithm in order to demonstrate how it can be extended to a broader set of objective value distributions. Finally, we discuss the speedup compared to classical schemes using the query complexity model, and show that our algorithm offers a significant advantage over these classical approaches.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, comments welcom