Improving Entanglement Resilience in Quantum Memories with Error-Detection-Based Distillation

Abstract: The degradation of entanglement in quantum memories due to decoherence is a critical challenge for scalable quantum networks. We present an entanglement distillation protocol based on the [[4,2,2]] quantum error-detecting code, deriving analytical expressions for its output fidelity and yield, and benchmarking it against the BBPSSW protocol. In addition to initial distillation, we investigate a re-distillation strategy in which stored logical entangled states are refreshed using only local operations and classical communication, avoiding the need to regenerate and redistribute entanglement from scratch. Our analysis shows that this method can extend the effective storage lifetime beyond BBPSSW,with its performance advantage primarily determined by classical communication delay. We derive upper bounds on classical communication latency required for the approach to maintain superiority. This work introduces a framework for treating quantum memories as reusable resources and links distillation strategy to practical implementation constraints, offering quantitative guidance for designing resilient quantum networks.