Enabling quantum communication in ultra-large-scale networks
Abstract
The recent development of small-scale quantum networks poses the question of which network-level mechanisms could enable quantum communication to operate at scale in a future Quantum Internet. The question can be answered within a well-established framework where a quantum network is mapped into a classical weighted graph, and communication reliability is assessed using methods from network theory. Previous work relied on this framework to determine sufficient conditions for viable network-wide communication only on special network topologies, such as regular lattices, and to devise communication protocols applicable only to small- and moderate-sized real networks. Here, we overcome both limitations by introducing a family of quantum communication protocols that scale to networks with hundreds of millions of nodes. We show that the competition between increasing communication distance and path redundancy determines their large-scale behavior, and that degree heterogeneity can provide sufficient redundancy to sustain communication in small-world networks. These conclusions are supported by a systematic analysis of both real network topologies and synthetic networks, and an analytical treatment in the limit of infinitely large random scale-free graphs.
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BibTeX
@misc{radicchi2026enabling,
title = {{Enabling quantum communication in ultra-large-scale networks}},
author = {Filippo Radicchi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.08326},
eprint = {2606.08326},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.08326},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Enabling quantum communication in ultra-large-scale networks
AU - Filippo Radicchi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.08326
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.08326
AB - The recent development of small-scale quantum networks poses the question of which network-level mechanisms could enable quantum communication to operate at scale in a future Quantum Internet. The question can be answered within a well-established framework where a quantum network is mapped into a classical weighted graph, and communication reliability is assessed using methods from network theory. Previous work relied on this framework to determine sufficient conditions for viable network-wide communication only on special network topologies, such as regular lattices, and to devise communication protocols applicable only to small- and moderate-sized real networks. Here, we overcome both limitations by introducing a family of quantum communication protocols that scale to networks with hundreds of millions of nodes. We show that the competition between increasing communication distance and path redundancy determines their large-scale behavior, and that degree heterogeneity can provide sufficient redundancy to sustain communication in small-world networks. These conclusions are supported by a systematic analysis of both real network topologies and synthetic networks, and an analytical treatment in the limit of infinitely large random scale-free graphs.
ER -