Quantum Queuing Delay

Queuing delay is an essential topic in the design of quantum networks. This paper introduces a tractable model for analyzing the queuing delay of quantum data, referred to as quantum queuing delay (QQD). The model employs a dynamic programming formalism and accounts for practical aspects such as the finite memory size. Using this model, we develop a cognitive-memory-based policy for memory management and show that this policy can decrease the average queuing delay exponentially with respect to memory size. Such a significant reduction can be traced back to the use of entanglement, a peculiar quantum phenomenon that has no classical counterpart. Numerical results validate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate the near-optimal performance of the developed policy.