End-to-end entanglement establishment with lower latency in quantum networks

In this paper, we consider to solve the problem of reducing the end-to-end quantum entanglement establishment latency in quantum networks. In some existing schemes, "doubling" entanglement swapping (ES) method is usually utilized in a nested quantum repeater structure, while we investigate parallel-measurement techniques. We propose a protocol for end-to-end entanglement establishment in a quantum network where heterogeneous Bell pairs are previously shared on physical links. The protocol is proven to be feasible theoretically in a generalized scenario with multiple quantum repeater nodes. A general decision mechanism is developed for the destination node to read out the state of end-to-end quantum entanglement locally based on knowledge of the received measurement outcomes and entangled links information. Numerical evaluation shows that our protocol outperforms the "doubling" ES scheme regarding to the end-to-end entanglement establishment latency.