Search SciRate

Network verification (NWV), broadly defined as the verification of properties of distributed protocols used in network systems, cannot be efficiently solved on classical hardware via brute force. Prior work has developed a variety of methods that scale by observing a structure in the search space and then evaluating classes within the search space instead of individual instances. However, even these classification mechanisms have their limitations. In this paper, we consider a radically different approach: applying quantum computing to more efficiently solve NWV problems. We provide an overview of how to map variants of NWV problems into unstructured search problems that can be solved via quantum computing with quadratic speedup, making the approach feasible in theory to problems that are double in size (of the input). Emerging quantum systems cannot yet tackle problems of practical interest, but rapid advances in hardware and algorithm development make now a great time to start thinking about their application. With this in mind, we explore the limits of scale of the problem for which quantum computing can solve NWV problems as unstructured search.

We analyze the entanglement generation in a pair of qubits that experience the vacuum fluctuations of a scalar field in the Cosmic String spacetime. The qubits are modeled as Unruh-DeWitt detectors coupled to a massless scalar field. We introduce a Heisenberg $XY$-interaction between the qubits that enhances the generation of quantum correlations. It is supposed that the qubits begin at a general mixed state described by a density operator with no entanglement while the field stays at its vacuum state. In this way, we find the general properties and conditions to create entanglement between the qubits by exploiting the field vacuum fluctuations. We quantify the qubits entanglement using the Negativity measure based on the Peres-Horodecki positive partial transpose criterion. We find that the Cosmic String would increase the entanglement harvesting when both qubits are near the Cosmic String. When the qubits locations are far from the Cosmic String we recover the usual results for Minkowski space. The Heisenberg $XY$-interaction enhance the entanglement harvesting irrespective of the coupling nature (ferromagnetic or anti-ferromagnetic). When the qubits are far apart from each other we find a maximum entanglement harvesting at the resonance points between the Heisenberg coupling constant and the qubits energy gap.