Quantum Internet Research Group AD. Dahlberg
Internet-Draft MS. Skrzypczyk
Intended status: Experimental SW. Wehner
Expires: September 12, 2019 QuTech, Delft University of Technology
March 11, 2019
The Link Layer service in a Quantum Internet
draft-dahlberg-ll-quantum-00
Abstract
In a classical network the link layer is responsible for transferring
a datagram between two nodes that are connected by a single link,
possibly including switches. In a quantum network however, the link
layer will need to provide a robust entanglement generation service
between two quantum nodes which are connected by a quantum link,
possibly including quantum repeaters. This service can be used by
higher layers to produce entanglement between distant nodes or to
perform other operations such as qubit transmission, without full
knowledge of the underlying hardware and its parameters. This draft
defines what can be expected from the service provided by a link
layer for a Quantum Network and defines an interface between higher
layers and the link layer.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 12, 2019.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Desired service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4.1. Higher layers to link layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.1.1. Header specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.2. Link layer to higher layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2.1. Header specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
The most important fundamental operation in a quantum network is the
generation of entanglement between nodes. Short-distance
entanglement can be used to generate long-distance entanglement with
the use of an operation called entanglement swap [1] (also formalised
in [2]). If nodes A and B share an entangled pair and similarly for
B and C, B can perform a so called Bell measurement [3] and send the
measurement outcome (2 bits) over a classical channel to A or C such
that in the end A and C share an entangled pair. Furthermore, long-
distance entanglement in turn enable long-distance qubit transmission
by the use of quantum teleportation [3] (also formalised in [2]).
Node A can teleport an unknown qubit state to B by consuming an
entangled pair between A and B and sending two classical bits to B.
Entanglement between distant nodes of up to 1.3 km have been
demonstrated [4], in a proof-of-principle experiment. The next step
towards a quantum network is to turn such an experiment to a reliable
service. This is the role of the link layer, which turns an ad-hoc
physical setup to a reliable entanglement generation service. Since
entanglement generation is typically a probabilistic process, one of
the main tasks of the link layer is to manage re-tries performed by
the physical layer and with high confidence provide entanglement to
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higher layers within a requested time window. Once an entangled pair
has been generated, the nodes need to be able to agree on which
qubits are involved in which entangled pair to be able to use it,
thus another main task of the link layer is to provide an
entanglement identifier.
2. Scope
This draft is meant to define the service and interface of an link
layer of a quantum network. It does not present a protocol realising
this service. However a protocol that indeed does this have been
proposed by us in the paper [5].
3. Desired service
This section definces the service that a link layer provides in a
quantum network. The interface and header specification is defined
in the next section.
A link layer between two nodes A and B of a quantum network must
provide the following features:
o Allow both node A and B to initialize entanglement generation.
o Allow the initializing node to specify a desired minimum
fidelity[3] and maximum waiting time.
o Notify both nodes of success or failure of entanglement generation
before the requested maximum waiting time has passed since the
request was initialized.
o If success is notified, the generated entangled pair has with high
confidence higher (or equal) fidelity than the desired minimum
fidelity.
o For successful request, provide an entanglement identifier to
allow higher layers to use identify the entangled pair in the
network.
4. Interface
This section describes the interface between higher layers and the
link layer in a quantum network, along with header specifications for
the type of messages. The interface consists of a single type of
message from the higher layers to the link layer, which is the CREATE
message for requesting entanglement generation. Response messages
from the link layer to the higher layers take either the form of an
ACK, an OK message or one of many error messages. The ACK is sent
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back directly upon receiving a CREATE if the link layer supports the
request and contains a CREATE ID such that the higher layer can
associated the subsequent OK messages to the correct request. It is
assumed that the nodes in the network are assigned a unique ID in the
network, which is used in the Remote Node ID parameters of the
messages below.
4.1. Higher layers to link layer
The higher layers can send a CREATE message to the link layer to
request the generation of entanglement. Along with other parameters,
as specified below the higher layers can specify a minimum fidelity,
a maximum waiting time and the number of entangled pairs to be
produced.
4.1.1. Header specification
The CREATE message contains the following parameters:
o Remote Node ID (32 bits): Used if the node is directly connected
to multiple nodes. Indicates which node to generate entanglement
with.
o Minimum fidelity (16 bits): The desired minimum fidelity, between
0 and 1, of the generated entangled pair. A binary value encoding
the integer 'n' represents the fidelity 'n' divided by (2^16-1).
o Max Time (16 bits): The maximum time in seconds the higher layer
is willing to wait for the request to be fulfilled. Represented
as a binary16 float as specified in [6].
o Purpose ID (16 bits): Allows the higher layer to tag the request
for a specific purpose. If the request is from an application
this can be thought of as a port number. The purpose ID can also
be used by a network layer to specify that this entanglement
request is part of long-distance entanglement generation over a
specific path.
o Number (16 bits): The number of entangled pairs to generate.
o Priority (4 bits): Can be used to indicate if this request is of
high priority and should ideally be fulfilled early. Higher means
faster service.
o Type of request (TPE) (1 bit): Either create and keep (K) or
measure directly (M), where K stores the generated entanglement in
memory and M measures the entanglement directly.
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o Atomic (ATO) (1 bit): A flag that indicates that the request
should be satisfied as a whole, i.e. that all entangled pairs are
available in memory at the same time. Only valid for type K
requests.
o Consecutive (CON) (1 bit): A flag indicating that the entangled
pairs of the request should be generated close in time. Note that
this is different from the atomic flag since the entangled pairs
does not need to exist in memory at the same time. Also,
Consecutive does not mean high priority, only that when the first
entangled pair is generated, the subsequent ones should be
generated with high priority.
The complete header specification of the CREATE message is given in
Figure 1.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Remote Node ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Minimum Fidelity | Max Time |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Purpose ID | Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Prio |T|A|C| |
| rity |P|T|O| Unused |
| |E|O|N| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 1: CREATE message header format
4.2. Link layer to higher layers
When receiving a CREATE message from higher layers the link layer
will directly respond and notify the higher layer whether requests
will be scheduled for generation. If so the link layer responds with
an ACK containing a CREATE ID. The higher layer can use this CREATE
ID together with the ID of the requesting node to associate OK
messages it receives from the link layer to the correct request.
Note that the ID of the requesting node is needed since the ACK is
returned directly and the CREATE ID is thus not unique for requests
from different nodes. If the link layer does not support the given
request an error message is instead returned.
When a request is satisfied an OK message is sent to the higher
layer. The OK message contains different fields depending on whether
the request was of type K or M. For K the OK contains a logical
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qubit identifier (LQID) such that the higher layer can know which
qubit holds the generated entanglement. For M the OK contains the
basis which the qubit was measured and the measurement outcome.
Both during and after an entanglement generation, the link layer can
return error messages to the higher layers, as further described
below. For example if something happens to the qubit or another
error occurs such that the entanglement is not valid anymore, the
link layer can issue an ERR_EXPIRE message.
4.2.1. Header specification
To distinguish the different types of messages that the link layer
can return to the higher layer, the first part of the header is a 4
bit field which specifies the type of message using the following
mapping:
o 0001: ACK
o 0010: Type K OK
o 0011: Type M OK
o 0100: ERR
The complete header specification for these four types of messages
are shown below in Figure 2 to Figure 5.
The ACK message contains the following parameters:
o Create ID (16 bits): A Create ID that the higher layer can use to
associate subsequent OK messages to the request.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Create ID | Unused |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 2: ACK message header format
The type K OK message contains the following parameters:
o Create ID (16 bits): Must be the same Create ID that was given in
the ACK of the corresponding request.
o Logical Qubit ID (LQID) (4 bits): A logical ID of the qubit which
is part of the entangled pair.
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o Directionality flag (D) (1 bit): Specifies if the request came
from this node (D=0) or from the remote node (D=1).
o Sequence number (16 bits): A sequence number for identifying the
entangled pair. It is assumed to be unique for entangled pairs
between the given nodes. Thus together with the IDs of the nodes,
one can create an entanglement identifier which is unique in the
network.
o Purpose ID (16 bits): The purpose ID of the request (only used by
the node which did not initiate the request)
o Remote Node ID (32 bits): Used if the node is directly connected
to multiple nodes.
o Goodness (16 bits): An estimate of the fidelity of the generated
entangled pair. Should not be seen as a guarantee.
o Time of Goodness (ToG) (16 bits): The time of the goodness
estimate. Not necessarily the time when the estimate is performed
but rather the time for which the estimate is for. Can be used to
make an updated estimate based on decoherence times of the qubits.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Create ID | LQID |D| Unused |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Sequence Number | Purpose ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Remote Node ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Goodness | Time of Goodness |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 3: Type K OK message header format
The type M OK message contains the following parameters:
o Create ID (16 bits): The same Create ID that was given in the ACK
of the corresponding request.
o Measurement outcome (M) (1 bit): The outcome of the measurement
performed on the entangled pair.
o Basis (3 bits): Which basis the entangled pair was measured in,
used if the basis is random. The following representation is
used:
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* 000: Unused
* 001: Z-basis {|0>, |1>}
* 010: (Y-basis) Z-basis rotated by angle -pi/2 around X-axis.
* 100: (X-basis) Z-basis rotated by angle pi/2 around Y-axis.
* 101: (XZ-basis) Z-basis rotated by angle pi/4 around Y-axis.
* 011: (YZ-basis) Z-basis rotated by angle -pi/4 around X-axis.
* 110: (XY-basis) X-basis rotated by angle pi/4 around Z-axis.
o Directionality flag (D) (1 bit): Specifies if the request came
from this node (D=0) or from the remote node (D=1).
o Sequence number (16 bits): A sequence number for identifying the
entangled pair. It is assumed to be unique for entangled pairs
between the given nodes. Thus together with the IDs of the nodes,
one can create an entanglement identifier which is unique in the
network.
o Purpose ID (16 bits): The purpose ID of the request (only used by
the node which did not initiate the request)
o Remote Node ID (32 bits): Used if the node is directly connected
to multiple nodes.
o Goodness (16 bits): An estimate of the fidelity of the generated
entangled pair. Should not be seen as a guarantee.
Note: Time of Goodness is not needed here since there is no
decoherence on the measurement outcomes.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Create ID |M|Basis|D| Unused |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Sequence Number | Purpose ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Remote Node ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Goodness | Unused |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 4: Type M OK message header format
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The ERR message contains the following parameters:
o Create ID (16 bits): The same Create ID that was given in the ACK
of the corresponding request.
o Error code (ERR) (4 bits): Specifies what error occurred. See
below what the error codes mean.
o Expire by sequence numbers (S) (1 bit): Used by ERR_EXPIRE, to
specify whether a range of sequence numbers should be expired
(S=1) or all sequence numbers associated with the given Create ID
and Origin Node (S=0).
o Sequence number low (16 bits): Used by error code ERR_EXPIRE to
identify a range of sequence numbers that needs to be expired.
Numbers above Sequence number low (inclusive) and below Sequence
number high (exclusive) should be expired.
o Sequence number high (16 bits): Used by error code ERR_EXPIRE to
identify a range of sequence numbers that needs to be expired.
Numbers above Sequence number low (inclusive) and below Sequence
number high (exclusive) should be expired.
o Origin Node (32 bits): Used if the node is directly connected to
multiple nodes. Needed here since Create IDs are not unique for
request from different nodes.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Create ID | ERR |S| Unused |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Sequence number low | Sequence number high |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Origin Node |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 5: Error message header format
The different error codes using in an error message are the
following:
o Error returned directly when a CREATE message is received:
* ERR_UNSUPP (0001): The given request is not supported. For
example if the minimum fidelity is not achievable or if the
request is of type K and the hardware cannot store
entanglement.
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* ERR_CREATE (0010): The create message could not be parsed.
* ERR_REJECTED (0011): The request was rejected by this node
based on for example the Purpose ID.
* ERR_OTHER (0100): An unknown error occurred.
o Error returned after a CREATE message is received, before or after
an OK is returned:
* ERR_EXPIRE (0101): One or more already sent OK messages have
expired and the entangled pair is not available anymore. Can
either be specified as a range of sequence numbers or by a
create ID by using the S flag.
* ERR_REJECTED (0011): The request was rejected by the other node
based on for example the Purpose ID.
* ERR_TIMEOUT (0110): The request was not satisfied within the
requested max waiting time.
5. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
6. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge funding received the Quantum
Internet Alliance.
The authors would further like to acknowledge Wojciech Kozlowski for
useful feedback on this draft.
7. Informative References
[1] Briegel, H., Dur, W., Cirac, J., and P. Zoller, "Quantum
repeates: The Role of Imperfect Local Operations in
Quantum Communication", Physical Review Letters 81, 26,
1998, <https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/
PhysRevLett.81.5932>.
[2] Kompella, K., Aelmans, M., Wehner, S., Sirbu, C., and A.
Dahlberg, "Advertising Entanglement Capabilities in
Quantum Networks", QIRG Internet-Draft, 2018,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
draft-kaws-qirg-advent/>.
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[3] Nielsen, M. and I. Chuang, "Quantum Computation and
Quantum Information", QIRG Internet-Draft, 2018,
<https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976667>.
[4] Hensen, B., Bernien, H., Dreau, A., Reiserer, A., Kalb,
N., Blok, M., Ruitenberg, J., Vermeulen, R., Schouten, R.,
Abellan, C., Amaya, W., Pruneri, V., Mitchell, M.,
Markham, M., Twitchen, D., Elkouss, D., Wehner, S.,
Taminiau, T., and R. Hanson, "Loophole-free Bell
inequality violation using electron spins separated by 1.3
kilometres", Nature 526, 682-686, 2015,
<https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05949>.
[5] Dahlberg, A., Skrzypczyk, M., Coopmans, T., Wubben, L.,
Rozpedek, F., Pompili, M., Stolk, A., Pawelczak, P.,
Knegjens, R., de Oliveira Filho, J., Hanson, R., and S.
Wehner, "A Link Layer Protocol for Quantum Networks",
arXiv pre-print (in preparation) arXiv:1903.XXXXX, 2019,
<https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.XXXXX>.
[6] IEEE, "754-1985 - IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-Point
Arithmetic", IEEE standard 10.1109/IEEESTD.1985.82928,
1990, <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/30711>.
Authors' Addresses
Axel Dahlberg
QuTech, Delft University of Technology
Lorentzweg 1
Delft 2628 CJ
Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)65 8966821
Email: e.a.dahlberg@tudelft.nl
Matthew Skrzypczyk
QuTech, Delft University of Technology
Lorentzweg 1
Delft 2628 CJ
Netherlands
Email: m.d.skrzypczyk@student.tudelft.nl
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Stephanie Wehner
QuTech, Delft University of Technology
Lorentzweg 1
Delft 2628 CJ
Netherlands
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