Entanglement is unanimously recognized as the key communication resource of the Quantum Internet. Yet, the possibility of implementing novel network functionalities by exploiting the marvels of entanglement has been poorly investigated so far, by mainly restricting the attention to bipartite entanglement. Conversely, in this paper, we aim at exploiting multipartite entanglement as inter-network resource. Specifically, we consider the interconnection of different Quantum Local Area Networks (QLANs), and we show that multipartite entanglement allows to dynamically generate an inter-QLAN artificial topology, by means of local operations only, that overcomes the limitations of the physical QLAN topologies. To this aim, we first design the multipartite entangled state to be distributed within each QLAN. Then, we show how such a state can be engineered to: i) interconnect nodes belonging to different QLANs, and ii) dynamically adapt to different inter-QLAN traffic patterns. Our contribution aims at providing the network engineering community with a hands-on guideline towards the concept of artificial topology and artificial neighborhood.

翻译：纠缠被一致认为是量子互联网的关键通信资源。然而，通过利用纠缠特性实现新型网络功能的可能性迄今研究甚少，主要局限于对二分纠缠的关注。相反，本文旨在利用多体纠缠作为网络间资源。具体而言，我们考虑不同量子局域网（QLAN）的互连，并证明多体纠缠能够仅通过局部操作动态生成一种QLAN间人工拓扑，从而克服物理QLAN拓扑的局限性。为此，我们首先设计了在每个QLAN内分发的多体纠缠态。随后，我们展示了如何通过工程化该纠缠态实现：i) 互连属于不同QLAN的节点，以及ii) 动态适应不同的QLAN间流量模式。本研究成果旨在为网络工程学界提供关于人工拓扑与人工邻近概念的实践性指导框架。