Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Small: Model, Design, and Implement Entanglement Routing Protocols for Quantum Networks

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The recently released "A Strategic Vision for America’s Quantum Networks" driven by the National Quantum Initiative Act addressed the importance of quantum networks on future communication security and computing advancement. Quantum networks supplement traditional networks, e.g., the Internet, and enable important applications such as secure key distribution, clock synchronization, secure remote computation, and distributed consensus, most of which cannot be easily and efficiently achieved by the classical Internet. This project focuses on a fundamental network service for quantum networks, namely quantum entanglement routing. If successful, the research outcomes of this project will be transformative as they will provide critical networking services and tasks such as secure communication and time synchronization, which in turn, will enable emerging and future services including IoT, edge computing, and their applications. To address quantum entanglement routing, this project will develop quantum network models that are consistent with results from experimental physics, while applying computer network design techniques and research methodologies to quantum networks. The proposed models will account for practical considerations from network protocol design, such as arbitrary network topologies, multiple concurrent sources and destinations that compete for resources, fidelity and purification, limited capacity at each node, as well as the fact that nodes only know localized short-lived link-state information. As such, the expected contributions of the proposed research are as follows: 1) Exploration of different routing metrics; 2) Development of offline and online contention-free routing protocols; 3) Design of efficient topologies for quantum networking; 4) Evaluation of the proposed algorithms using analytical models as well as a custom simulator; and 5) Implementation of the proposed protocols with real quantum devices. The network models, algorithms, protocols, and experimental tools developed in this project will be made available to the networking research community to help jump-start research efforts on quantum networks, e.g., exploring ink layer and transport layer services. The project will leverage the visibility and timeliness of quantum computing and quantum networking to recruit first-generation students as well as students from under-represented populations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.