2025/10/08 by Iftach Yakar, Yakar, Iftach, Michael Ben-Or +1 · 1 voice
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI) #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #cs.NI #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.06737
openalex publication_date 2025/10/08 · arxiv published 2025/10/08 · arxiv updated 2025/10/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Quantum repeaters are essential for achieving long-distance quantum communication due to photon loss, which grows exponentially with the channel distance. Current quantum repeater generations use entanglement distillation protocols, where the decision of when to perform distillation depends on either local or global knowledge. Recent approaches for quantum repeaters, such as Mantri et al. (arXiv:2409.06152), consider using deterministic local decision policies for entanglement distillation. We ask whether global deterministic policies outperform local ones in terms of communication rate. We simulate equidistant repeater chains, assisted by two-way classical communication, and compare local and global policies for distillation decisions, spanning large distances and varying network and hardware parameters. Our findings show that global deterministic policies consistently outperform these local ones, and in some cases, determine whether secret communication is possible. For large repeater chains (N>512), global policies improve SKR by two orders of magnitude. These results suggest that local distillation decisions in quantum repeater chains may not be optimal, and may inform future protocol design.