SimQN: A Network-Layer Simulator for the Quantum Network Investigation

Along with the rapid development of quantum information technologies, quantum networks that transmit quantum states have gradually shifted from laboratory to reality. However, the high cost of building a quantum network testbed seriously hinders the research progress of quantum networks, and the existing simulators have been developed with less exposure to network models. To overcome those deficiencies, this article proposes a new discrete-event driven network-layer simulation framework named SimQN, available at https://github.com/ertuil/SimQN, to provide full functionalities of the quantum networking simulation. The design goal of SimQN is to make it easy-to-configure while providing high performance and accurate simulation capability. We present multiple simulation physical backends to enable different functionalities and reduce computational overhead. The modularized SimQN also provides reusable network protocols and utilities to release the large-scale quantum networking evaluation burden. We present several demonstrations and analyses to illustrate the protocol design and the performance of SimQN.