On the Capacity of the Quantum Switch with and without Entanglement Decoherence

Abstract

This paper studies the capacity of the quantum switch for two decoherence models: when link-level entanglements last (i) for a time slot, or (ii) until they are used to serve a request (i.e., there is no decoherence). The two models are important as they set lower and upper bounds on the capacity region for any other decoherence model. The paper's contributions are to characterize the switch capacity region for both decoherence models and to propose throughput-optimal policies based on gradient descent.