Quantum Multi-Path Communication Protocol Based on Maximum Flow Theory

Quantum networks are an actively researched and promising field, aiming to achieve efficient quantum information transmission by interconnecting quantum nodes. In large-scale quantum networks, end-to-end throughput is a critical factor that affects the overall performance of the network. The maximum flow problem, extensively studied in classical network theory, identifies a set of paths between the source and destination nodes that maximizes the total flow. This study extends the maximum flow problem to quantum networks, focusing on coordinating multiple paths for multi-path quantum communication. We propose a Quantum Multi-Path Communication Protocol (QMCP) that employs maximum flow theory to allocate transmission resources across multiple nodes efficiently, thus maximizing the total transmission capacity from the source to the destination. Our evaluation demonstrates that QMCP significantly enhances end-to-end throughput in quantum networks.