In standard quantum teleportation, the receiver must wait for a classical message from the sender before subsequently processing the transmitted quantum information. However, in port-based teleportation (PBT), this local processing can begin before the classical message is received, thereby allowing for asynchronous quantum information processing. Motivated by resource-theoretic considerations and practical applications, we propose different communication models that progressively allow for more powerful decoding strategies while still permitting asynchronous distributed quantum computation, a salient feature of standard PBT. Specifically, we consider PBT protocols augmented by free classical processing and/or different forms of quantum pre-processing, and we investigate the maximum achievable teleportation fidelities under such operations. Our analysis focuses specifically on the PBT power of isotropic states, bipartite graph states, and symmetrized EPR states, and we compute tight bounds on the optimal teleportation fidelities for such states. We finally show that, among this hierarchy of communication models consistent with asynchronous quantum information processing, the strongest resource theory is equally as powerful as any one-way teleportation protocol for surpassing the classical teleportation threshold. Thus, a bipartite state can break the one-way classical teleportation threshold if and only if it can be done using the trivial decoding map of discarding subsystems.

Quantum emitter-based schemes for the generation of photonic graph states offer a promising, resource efficient methodology for realizing distributed quantum computation and communication protocols on near-term hardware. We present a heralded scheme for making photonic graph states that is compatible with the typically poor photon collection from state-of-the-art coherent quantum emitters. We demonstrate that the construction time for large graph states can be polynomial in the photon collection efficiency, as compared to the exponential scaling of current emitter-based schemes, which assume deterministic photon collection. The additional overhead here consists of an extra spin qubit plus one additional spin-spin entangling gate per photon added to the graph. While the proposed scheme requires both non-demolition measurement and efficient storage of photons in order to generate graph states for arbitrary applications, we show that many useful tasks, including measurement-based quantum computation, can be implemented without these requirements. As a use-case of our scheme, we construct a protocol for secure two-party computation that can be implemented efficiently on current hardware. Estimates of the fidelity to produce graph states used in the computation are given assuming current and near-term fidelities for highly coherent quantum emitters.

Helper quantum secret sharing is a form of secret sharing defined by its unique access structure. One special fixed party, called the helper, can work together with any other party to fully decode the secret. A blind helper is one who can provide this assistance while not holding any local information about the encoded secret. In this work, we analyze the general structure of QSS helper codes and present new code constructions. We fully characterize the structure of blind helper stabilizer codes and show that for the encoding of a single qubit, recovery is always possible using one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC) from the helper to the targeted party. Furthermore, we demonstrate how such codes also allow for the helper to target larger subsets of parties by one-way LOCC, enabling them to be authorized to recover the secret. Finally, when each party only holds a qubit, we identify the general form of all helper codes (including non-stabilizer codes) and find that LOCC recovery is only possible in special cases.

Quantum masking is a special type of secret sharing in which some information gets reversibly distributed into a multipartite system, leaving the original information inaccessible to each subsystem. This paper proposes a dynamical extension of quantum masking to the level of quantum channels. In channel masking, the identity of a channel becomes locally hidden but still globally accessible after its output is sent through a bipartite broadcasting channel. We first characterize all families of d-dimensional unitaries that can be isometrically masked, a condition that holds even in the presence of depolarizing noise. For the case of qubits, we identify which families of Pauli channels can be masked, and we prove that a qubit channel can be masked against the identity if and only if it is unital and has a pure-state fixed point. Masking against the identity describes a scenario in which channel noise becomes completely delocalized through a broadcast map and undetectable through subsystem dynamics alone.

Quantum resources, such as entanglement or quantum communication, offer significant communication advantages in information processing. We develop an operational framework for realizing these communication advantages in resource-constrained quantum networks. The framework computes linear bounds on the input/output probabilities of classical networks with limited communication and globally shared randomness. Since the violation of these classical bounds witnesses nonclassicality, a measurable communication advantage, the framework maximizes the violation of the classical bound using variational quantum optimization methods tailored to the communication network and quantum resources. This operational framework for nonclassicality can be scaled on quantum computers or deployed in the field to optimize noisy quantum networks for communication advantages. Applying this framework, we investigate the nonclassicality of communication networks that are assisted by quantum resources. We find that entanglement between communication-constrained parties is sufficient for nonclassicality to be found, whereas in networks with multiple senders, quantum communication with no entanglement-assistance is sufficient for nonclassicality to be found. As a result, entanglement is necessary for nonclassicality when a single sender broadcasts to multiple receivers.

Quantum communications have progressed significantly, moving from a theoretical concept to small-scale experiments to recent metropolitan-scale demonstrations. As the technology matures, it is expected to revolutionize quantum computing in much the same way that classical networks revolutionized classical computing. Quantum communications will also enable breakthroughs in quantum sensing, metrology, and other areas. However, scalability has emerged as a major challenge, particularly in terms of the number and heterogeneity of nodes, the distances between nodes, the diversity of applications, and the scale of user demand. This article describes InterQnet, a multidisciplinary project that advances scalable quantum communications through a comprehensive approach that improves devices, error handling, and network architecture. InterQnet has a two-pronged strategy to address scalability challenges: InterQnet-Achieve focuses on practical realizations of heterogeneous quantum networks by building and then integrating first-generation quantum repeaters with error mitigation schemes and centralized automated network control systems. The resulting system will enable quantum communications between two heterogeneous quantum platforms through a third type of platform operating as a repeater node. InterQnet-Scale focuses on a systems study of architectural choices for scalable quantum networks by developing forward-looking models of quantum network devices, advanced error correction schemes, and entanglement protocols. Here, we report our current progress toward achieving our scalability goals.

Distribution of entanglement is an essential task in quantum information processing and the realization of quantum networks. In our work, we theoretically investigate the scenario where a central source prepares an N-partite entangled state and transmits each entangled subsystem to one of N receivers through noisy quantum channels. The receivers are then able to perform local operations assisted by unlimited classical communication to distill target entangled states from the noisy channel output. In this operational context, we define the EPR distribution capacity and the GHZ distribution capacity of a quantum channel as the largest rates at which Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) states and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states can be faithfully distributed through the channel, respectively. We establish lower and upper bounds on the EPR distribution capacity by connecting it with the task of assisted entanglement distillation. We also construct an explicit protocol consisting of a combination of a quantum communication code and a classical-post-processing-assisted entanglement generation code, which yields a simple achievable lower bound for generic channels. As applications of these results, we give an exact expression for the EPR distribution capacity over two erasure channels and bounds on the EPR distribution capacity over two generalized amplitude damping channels. We also bound the GHZ distribution capacity, which results in an exact characterization of the GHZ distribution capacity when the most noisy channel is a dephasing channel.

Bell nonlocality reveals correlations that cannot be explained by classical models and plays a central role in quantum information theory. In this work, we investigate classical models of Bell nonlocality under restrictions on shared randomness. For bipartite scenarios with bounded shared randomness, the set of classical correlations becomes nonconvex. We characterize the correlations achievable without shared randomness through the simultaneous evaluation of multiple linear Bell functionals. We then extend our analysis to quantum networks by relaxing the standard assumption of source independence. In this setting, the feasibility constraints derived for the bipartite case can be used to certify source dependence, and we further construct nonlinear inequalities that distinguish classical models with correlated sources from correlations achievable in standard quantum networks. As an application, we show that these nonlinear network inequalities give rise to an entropic Bell inequality for bipartite scenarios with limited shared randomness.

Quantum dense coding is a foundational protocol in quantum communication, allowing two classical bits to be transmitted by sending a single qubit when a maximally entangled pair is shared. In this work, we consider Embedded Dense Coding (EDC)—a generalization of deterministic dense coding that embeds one subsystem into a higher-dimensional Hilbert space. To assess the operational advantage of EDC compared to standard dense coding, we consider the probability of transmission error when fixing the rate of entanglement consumed per classical message sent. We first demonstrate that EDC enables a smaller one-shot transmission error compared to standard dense coding when using quantum channels with nonzero rates of dephasing and loss. We then demonstrate that even with noiseless communication channels, EDC leads to smaller overall errors when the sender and receiver have noisy local processors. This advantage is shown through concrete implementations of EDC on IBM’s Heron processor.

Entanglement purification protocols (EPPs) are essential for improving entanglement fidelity to support fault-tolerant distributed quantum information processing. Practical entanglement sources are often heterogeneous and source labels may be unavailable at the EPP layer. We show that classical shared randomness, together with buffer memories, can enhance entanglement purification when source labels are unavailable, without state characterization or EPP circuit optimization. The strategy is to accumulate multiple entanglement distribution rounds and then use shared randomness to shuffle all the stored entangled states before packaging them as inputs to the EPP. For any n Werner sources and any fixed n-to-1 bilocal Clifford EPP, we prove that accumulating and shuffling improves the expected success probability and the success-weighted output Bell fidelity over the baseline without accumulating and shuffling, for every n, for every finite number of accumulation rounds and in the asymptotic limit, and the improvement increases monotonically with the number of accumulation rounds.

Quantum networks enable secure communication, distributed computing, and precision sensing beyond classical capabilities. Recent advances have progressed from two-node links to multi-node architectures, enabling rigorous tests of multiparty quantum communication protocols. Among these, quantum secret sharing (QSS) leverages multipartite entanglement to distribute secrets such that only authorized parties can reconstruct them. Here, we present a three-node quantum communication testbed with a triangular topology, each edge implemented by a 1.3-meter-long transmission line, and use this testbed to demonstrate QSS. We demonstrate state transfer and entanglement generation between all node pairs, create genuine tripartite GHZ entanglement, and implement QSS of classical information. Our experiments show that the QSS protocol detects eavesdropping in situ, ensuring secure secret distribution on a superconducting platform.

Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is a process in which the state of a quantum system is partitioned into multiple shares, allowing only specific subsets of shareholders to reconstruct the state, while others gain no information about its identity. In this work, we propose a variant of QSS, called “helper QSS,” which designates a special shareholder whose participation with any other group of parties is sufficient for recovering the state. We present different families of helper codes that function for an arbitrary number of parties and system sizes. As an application, we introduce the idea of a programmable access structure in QSS, which allows for a third-party programmer to independently choose the access structure of the code even after the shares are delivered to all the shareholders. This choice is made blindly, meaning that the programmer has no information about the secret being encoded, and it is implemented using the nonlocal process of quantum steering.

In standard quantum teleportation, the receiver must wait for a classical message from the sender before subsequently processing the transmitted quantum information. However, in port-based teleportation (PBT), this local processing can begin before the classical message is received, thereby allowing for asynchronous quantum information processing. Motivated by resource-theoretic considerations and practical applications, we propose different communication models that progressively allow for more powerful decoding strategies while still permitting asynchronous distributed quantum computation, a salient feature of standard PBT. Specifically, we consider PBT protocols augmented by free classical processing and/or different forms of quantum pre-processing, and we investigate the maximum achievable teleportation fidelities under such operations. Our analysis focuses specifically on the PBT power of isotropic states, bipartite graph states, and symmetrized EPR states, and we compute tight bounds on the optimal teleportation fidelities for such states. We finally show that, among this hierarchy of communication models consistent with asynchronous quantum information processing, the strongest resource theory is equally as powerful as any one-way teleportation protocol for surpassing the classical teleportation threshold. Thus, a bipartite state can break the one-way classical teleportation threshold if and only if it can be done using the trivial decoding map of discarding subsystems.

Quantum entanglement is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics, yet certain entangled states that are unsteerable can be classically simulated in steering scenarios, making them unable to exhibit quantum steering. Despite their significance, a systematic comparison of such entangled states has not been explored. In this work, we quantify the resource content of unsteerable quantum states in terms of the amount of shared randomness required to simulate the assemblages they generate in the steering scenario. We rigorously demonstrate that the simulation cost is unbounded even for certain unsteerable two-qubit states. Moreover, the simulation cost of entangled two-qubit states is always strictly larger than that for any separable state. A significant portion of our results rests on the relationship between the simulation cost of two-qubit Werner states and that of noisy spin measurements. Using noisy spin measurements as our central example, we also investigate the minimum number of outcomes a parent measurement requires to simulate a given set of compatible measurements. Although certain continuous measurement families admit a finite-outcome parent measurement, we identify scenarios where the simulation cost is unbounded. Our results establish previously unknown lower bounds and upper bounds on the shared randomness simulation cost, supported by connections between the simulation cost of noisy spin measurements and various geometric inequalities, including ones from the zonotope approximation problem in Banach space theory.

Distributed source simulation is the task where two (or more) parties share some correlated randomness and use local operations and no communication to convert this into some target correlation. Wyner's seminal result showed that asymptotically the rate of uniform shared randomness needed for this task is given by a mutual information induced measure, now referred to as Wyner's common information. This asymptotic result was extended by Hayashi in the quantum setting to separable states, the largest class of states for which this task can be performed to vanishing error. In this work we characterize this task in a near-tight manner in the one-shot setting using the smooth entropy framework. We do this by introducing one-shot operational quantities and correlation measures that characterize them. We establish asymptotic equipartition properties for our correlation measures thereby recovering the previous vanishing-error asymptotic results. In doing so, we consider technical points in one-shot network information theory and provide methods for cardinality bounds in the smooth entropy calculus. We also introduce entangled state versions of the distributed source simulation task and determine bounds in this setting via quantum embezzling. This provides a strong characterization of this network task in the one-shot, quantum regime.

The no-cloning theorem leads to information-theoretic security in various quantum cryptographic protocols. However, this security typically derives from a possibly weaker property that classical information encoded in certain quantum states cannot be broadcast. To formally capture this property, we introduce the study of ‘orthogonality broadcasting.’ When attempting to broadcast the orthogonality of two different qubit bases, we establish that the power of classical and quantum communication is equivalent. However, quantum communication is shown to be strictly more powerful for broadcasting orthogonality in higher dimensions. We then relate orthogonality broadcasting to quantum position verification and provide a new method for establishing error bounds in the no pre-shared entanglement model that can address protocols previous methods could not. Our key technical contribution is an uncertainty relation that uses the geometric relation of the states that undergo broadcasting rather than the non-commutative aspect of the final measurements.

An efficient paradigm for multi-party computation (MPC) are protocols structured around access to shared pre-processed computational resources. In this model, certain forms of correlated randomness are distributed to the participants prior to their computation. The shared randomness is then consumed in a computation phase that involves public communication with efficient round complexity, and the computation is secure in this second phase provided the initial correlations were distributed securely. Usually the latter requires some strong setup assumptions, such as a trusted dealer and private channels. We present a novel approach for generating these correlations from entangled quantum graph states and yield information-theoretic privacy guarantees that hold against a malicious adversary, with limited assumptions. Our primary contribution is a tripartite resource state and measurement-based protocol for extracting a binary multiplication triple, a special form of shared randomness that enables the private multiplication of a bit conjunction. Here, we employ a third party as a Referee and demand only an honest pair among the three parties. The role of this Referee is weaker than that of a Dealer, as the Referee learns nothing about the underlying shared randomness that is disseminated. We prove perfect privacy for our protocol, assuming access to an ideal copy of the resource state, an assumption that is based on the existence of graph state verification protocols. Finally, we demonstrate its application as a primitive for more complex Boolean functionalities such as 1-out-of-2 oblivious transfer (OT) and MPC for an arbitrary $N$-party Boolean function, assuming access to the proper broadcasting channel.

Quantum secret sharing is a cryptographic scheme that enables the secure storage and reconstruction of quantum information. While the theory of secret sharing is mature in its development, relatively few studies have explored the performance of quantum secret sharing on actual devices. In this work, we provide a pedagogical description of encoding and decoding circuits for different secret sharing codes, and we test their performance on IBM’s 127-qubit Brisbane system. We evaluate the quality of the implementation by performing a SWAP test between the decoded state and the ideal one, as well as by estimating how well the code preserves entanglement with a reference system. The results indicate that a ((3,5)) threshold secret sharing scheme and a non-threshold 7-qubit scheme perform similarly based on the SWAP test and entanglement fidelity, with both attaining a roughly 70–75% pass rate on the SWAP test for the reconstructed secret. We also investigate one implementation of a ((2,3)) qutrit threshold scheme and find that it performs the worst of all, which is expected due to the additional number of multi-qubit gate operations needed to encode and decode qutrits. A comparison is also made between schemes using mid-circuit measurement versus delayed-circuit measurement.

Quantum replacer codes are codes that can be protected from errors induced by a given set of quantum replacer channels, an important class of quantum channels that includes the erasures of subsets of qubits that arise in quantum error correction. We prove a structure theorem for such codes that synthesizes a variety of special cases with earlier theoretical work in quantum error correction. We present several examples and applications of the theorem, including a mix of new observations and results together with some subclasses of codes revisited from this new perspective.

An entanglement purification protocol (EPP) aims to transform multiple noisy entangled states into a single entangled state with higher fidelity. In this work we consider input-independent EPPs that always yield an output fidelity no worse than each of the original noisy states, a property we call universality. We prove there is no n-to-1 EPP implementable by local operations and classical communication that is universal for all two-qubit entangled states, whereas such an EPP is possible using more general positive partial transpose-preserving (PPT) operations. We also show that universality is impossible by any bilocal Clifford EPP even when restricted to states with fidelities above an arbitrarily high threshold.