Routing and Spectrum Allocation in Broadband Quantum Entanglement Distribution

Abstract

We investigate resource allocation for quantum entanglement distribution over an optical network. We characterize and model a network architecture that employs a single broadband quasi-deterministic time-frequency heralded Einstein- Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pair source, and develop a routing and spectrum allocation scheme for distributing entangled photon pairs over such a network. As our setting allows separately solving the routing and spectrum allocation problems, we first find an optimal polynomial-time routing algorithm. We then employ max- min fairness criterion for spectrum allocation, which presents an NP-hard problem. Thus, we focus on approximately-optimal schemes. We compare their performance by evaluating the max- min and median number of EPR-pair rates assigned by them, and the associated Jain index. We identify two polynomial-time approximation algorithms that perform well, or better than others under these metrics. We also investigate scalability by analyzing how the network size and connectivity affect performance using Watts-Strogatz random graphs. We find that a spectrum allocation approach that achieves higher minimum EPR-pair rate can perform significantly worse when the median EPR-pair rate, Jain index, and computational resources are considered. Additionally, we evaluate the effect of the source node placement on the performance.