Abstract

The quantum technology revolution brings with it the promise of a quantum internet. A new -- quantum -- network stack will be needed to account for the fundamentally new properties of quantum entanglement. The first realisations of quantum networks are imminent and research interest in quantum network protocols has started growing. In the non-quantum world, programmable data planes have broken the pattern of ossification of the protocol stack and enabled a new -- software-defined -- network software architecture. Similarly, a programmable quantum data plane could pave the way for a software-defined quantum network architecture. In this paper, we demonstrate how we use P4$_{16}$ to explore abstractions and device architectures for quantum networks.

Highlights

  • The idea of a quantum internet has been around for some time [3, 10] and in the last few years physicists have made significant progress towards building the first long-range quantum networks [5, 11, 12]

  • Software-defined networking (SDN) concepts have even already been applied to quantum key distribution (QKD) networks [2]

  • We present a software package [1], developed for NetSquid [9], to run P4 programs on a simulated quantum network

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The idea of a quantum internet has been around for some time [3, 10] and in the last few years physicists have made significant progress towards building the first long-range quantum networks [5, 11, 12]. Software-defined networking (SDN) concepts have even already been applied to quantum key distribution (QKD) networks [2]. These networks are single-purpose and are not designed for applications beyond QKD. We present a software package [1], developed for NetSquid [9], to run P4 programs on a simulated quantum network. NetSquid is one of the most realistic quantum network simulators and has already been used to validate new quantum protocols [4]. NetSquid’s accurate results and rich library of hardware models mean that P4 programs validated in simulation can later be ported to real quantum hardware by making the device P4 programmable. With our P4 package, we start abstracting these low-level details behind quantum device architectures. In addition to laying the foundation for SDQNs, this could make quantum protocol design more accessible

DOMAIN-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE
ARCHITECTURE OF A QUANTUM
ENTANGLEMENT GENERATION IN P4
CONCLUSIONS
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