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 in several quantum networking protocols such as entanglement generation, swapping, purification, and teleportation.