Scheduling Compact Error Correcting Codes in Entanglement Distribution Networks

A fundamental challenge in generating and distributing high-fidelity

entanglement in quantum repeater networks is the management

and suppression of quantum errors. In this work, we develop an

approach for extending the effective coherence time of shared

entanglement between nodes by utilizing compact quantum error

correcting (QEC) codes, which are scheduled and run locally on

resource-constrained repeaters, to maximize the fidelity of the shared state,

while also accounting for the incurred gate noise from QEC circuit

operations. This local QEC approach stabilizes the distributed state

via local operations, so independent execution on the nodes requires

no additional synchronization or protocol overhead. Simulation

results show significant improvements in the effective coherence

time relative to idle decay, suggesting this approach could be useful

with several quantum networking protocols such as entanglement

generation, swapping, purification, and teleportation.