DH-EAC: Design of a Dynamic, Hierarchical Entanglement Access Control Protocol
Akihisa Takahashi, Yoshito Tobe
TL;DR
DH-EAC tackles anonymized, fair entanglement access in wide-area quantum networks by a hierarchical pure-quantum lottery that determines both the winning QLANs and per-QLAN quotas entirely by measurement, avoiding classical round-trips in the contention loop. The outer lottery across QLANs and the inner lottery within each winning QLAN are encoded in a joint quantum state and finalized via local measurements, enabling scalability and privacy. The authors develop analytical models for success probability and latency under an i.i.d. loss model and compare against a single-QLAN Dicke baseline and a classical GO-driven allocator, using metrics $P$, $L$, $\mathrm{THR}$, and Jain's fairness index. The results indicate favorable latency scaling and robust fairness under heterogeneity, suggesting DH-EAC as a practical design point for anonymous, scalable entanglement allocation in multi-QLAN networks.
Abstract
We propose Dynamic, Hierarchical Entanglement Access Control (DH-EAC), a pure-quantum protocol for fair and anonymous allocation of scarce entanglement across wide-area quantum networks composed of many quantum LANs (QLANs). Prior Dicke-state-based pure-quantum MACs resolve contention by local measurements without classical signaling, but they mainly target a single QLAN under static conditions; extending them to wide-area, dynamic settings while avoiding post-selection reconciliation remains open. DH-EAC adopts a two-layer pure-quantum lottery: the outer layer selects winning QLANs and the inner layer selects winning nodes within each winning QLAN. A key design principle is that both the winning set and the per-QLAN quota are fixed by measurements alone, so the contention loop requires no classical round trip. The protocol thus aims to jointly satisfy anonymity (no node IDs revealed until decisions are fixed) and fairness (bias suppression under heterogeneous QLAN sizes). We also provide analytical models for success probability and latency under a standard i.i.d. loss model, and we evaluate DH-EAC against two baselines - single-layer Dicke within one QLAN and a classical GO-driven allocator - using a minimal, reproducible set of scenarios. Metrics include success probability, end-to-end latency, throughput, and Jain's fairness index. The results indicate that DH-EAC offers an implementable design point in the space of entanglement access control, balancing pure-quantum contention resolution, anonymity, and scalability for multi-QLAN networks.