Concurrence percolation threshold of large-scale quantum networks

Abstract

Quantum networks describe communication networks that are based on quantum entanglement. A concurrence percolation theory has been recently developed to determine the required entanglement to enable communication between two distant stations in an arbitrary quantum network. Unfortunately, concurrence percolation has been calculated only for very small networks or large networks without loops. Here, we develop a set of mathematical tools for approximating the concurrence percolation threshold for unprecedented large-scale quantum networks by estimating the path-length distribution, under the assumption that all paths between a given pair of nodes have no overlap. We show that our approximate method agrees closely with analytical results from concurrence percolation theory. The numerical results we present include 2D square lattices of 2002 nodes and complex networks of up to 104 nodes. The entanglement percolation threshold of a quantum network is a crucial parameter for constructing a real-world communication network based on entanglement, and our method offers a significant speed-up for the intensive computations involved.