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    "headline": "One Atom Let Quantum Links Wait for Light",
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    "dek": "A proposed memory-assisted link avoids requiring photons from two processors to arrive together.",
    "summary": "A proposed memory-assisted link avoids requiring photons from two processors to arrive together.",
    "body_text": "A single atom in a high-finesse cavity acts as a temporary quantum memory between two processor links. The proposed protocol entangles the atom with a photon from one processor, waits for a photon from the second, then reads out the atom to entangle the processors. In the authors’ rate model, avoiding simultaneous photon arrival changes a quadratic photon-delivery penalty to approximately linear scaling over a broad range; the photons also need not be indistinguishable. These are theoretical rate estimates under modeled decoherence, not a deployed quantum network.",
    "why_it_matters": "A proposed memory-assisted link avoids requiring photons from two processors to arrive together.",
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      "In the authors’ rate model, avoiding simultaneous photon arrival changes a quadratic photon-delivery penalty to approximately linear scaling over a broad range; the photons also need not be indistinguishable.",
      "These are theoretical rate estimates under modeled decoherence, not a deployed quantum network."
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    "tags": [
      "quantum networking",
      "photonic interconnect",
      "atomic memory"
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  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-09-21-006",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2609.21961",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
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    "title": "One Atom Let Quantum Links Wait for Light",
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