U.S.-Ireland R&D Partnership: Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Medium: A unified framework for the emulation of classical and quantum physical layer networks

Recent advances in quantum physics, devices, computing and communications systems have brought attention to the potential of a quantum Internet, which may be used for a variety of applications, including interconnection of quantum computers. A quantum Internet is expected to involve a combination of classical and quantum communication systems working in concert. The research in this project seeks to apply classical control architectures and research methods to the investigation of quantum network control, and to study network control of quantum applications and their coexistence with classical communication systems. Several use cases will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. This project brings together a unique US-Ireland-Northern Ireland interdisciplinary team to address important challenges facing the development of a quantum Internet. The United States partners at the University of Arizona will contribute expertise in use cases sensitive to different forms of quantum and classical noise in optical communication systems. This includes theoretical models for these noise sources, their expression in communication networks, and their representation in network emulation. The Republic of Ireland team at Trinity College Dublin will use these new models in extensions to classical network emulation tools and adapt these tools to the study of control planes and network layering in quantum networks. Key use cases to benchmark and evaluate these new tools will be studied by the Northern Ireland team at Queens University Belfast. This wide range of expertise and capabilities across each institution will be essential for the success of this project. The software tools and understanding that will result from this project will be widely disseminated and enable new research in the interoperation of classical and quantum networks. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.