Towards a Global Scale Quantum Information Network: A Study Applied to Satellite-Enabled Distributed Quantum Computing

Recent developments have reported on the feasibility of interconnecting small quantum registers in a quantum information network of a few meter-scale for distributed quantum computing purposes. Small quantum processors in a network represent a promising solution to the scalability problem of manipulating more than thousands of noise-free qubits. Here, we propose and assess a satellite-enabled distributed quantum computing system at the French national scale based on existing infrastructures in Paris and Nice. We consider a system composed of both a ground and a Space segment, allowing for the distribution of end-to-end entanglement between Alice in Paris and Bob in Nice, each owning a few-qubit processor composed of trapped ions. In the context of quantum computing, this entanglement resource can be used for the teleportation of a qubit state or for gate teleportation. After having developed a model, we numerically assess the entanglement distribution rate and fidelity generated by this space-based quantum information network and discuss concrete use cases and service performance levels in the framework of distributed quantum computing. We obtain 90 end-to-end entangled photon pairs distributed over a satellite pass of 331 s that can perform a teleportation-based controlled-Z operation with a fidelity of at most 82%.