Socially-Aware Concurrent Entanglement Routing in Satellite-Assisted Multi-Domain Quantum Networks

Quantum teleportation through quantum entanglement over optical fiber channels enables secure communications. However, physical obstacles such as oceans and mountains may block optical fiber channels, and thus quantum networks (QNs) may have multiple disjoint domains. To overcome the issue, in this paper, we first propose a promising framework termed SSR to leverage satellite-based Free-Space Optical (FSO) channels to create inter-domain entangled paths for long-distance requests. Still, FSO channels may be intermittent due to satellite sparsity and atmospheric turbulence. Then, we introduce two algorithms, named RAIN and IDOL, to efficiently utilize FSO channels in SSR. RAIN estimates the existence probability of FSO channels to plan an appropriate inter-domain routing for each request while balancing domain loads. IDOL selects desired intra-domain paths and trusted repeaters for each request to teleport data qubits. Finally, simulation results manifest that SSR runs efficiently and outperforms existing approaches by 31%–57% in throughput.