Efficiency of Distributed Myopic Routing in a Quantum Memory-Free Network

Abstract:
Entanglement routing in quantum networks is a crucial step toward building secure and scalable quantum communication systems. Due to the unique properties of quantum information, this routing task is more complex than its classical counterparts. In this study, we evaluate the impact of local myopic decision-making on network performance, offering an alternative to a centralized approach. We analyze real-world network topologies by extracting different subgraphs and statistically examining how the efficiency of myopic routing varies with the number of nodes in each cluster. Using a custom reward–cost-based objective function, we compare the performance of both myopic and globally optimal routing strategies. Our results show that the efficiency of the myopic routing is generally low; however, it improves as the number of nodes increases. This hints at the necessity of at least some level of centralized coordination, but overall seems to imply that local decision-making mechanisms can be efficient enough, which paves the road for the scalable design of quantum networks.