arXiv:2605.23557

CV-QKD over Turbulence Channels with Virtual Photon Subtraction and Quantum Multiple-Symbol Detection for Underwater Quantum Communications

Nour Rizk, Hesham S. Ibrahim, Angélique Drémeau, Arnaud Coatanhay

quant-phSubmitted May 22, 2026• Announced May 25, 2026• 0 citations

Abstract

Continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) is a promising approach for secure underwater quantum communications (UQCs), where propagation loss, scattering, turbulence, and receiver thermal noise can severely degrade the transmission of quantum states. In this paper, we propose an underwater CV-QKD system with virtual photon subtraction (VPS), implemented through post-selection of Alice's measurement outcomes, without requiring channel state information (CSI) at the receiver. Three VPS-based system configurations are analyzed, corresponding to homodyne detection (VPS-HD), quantum maximum-likelihood detection (VPS-QMLD), and quantum multiple-symbol detection (VPS-QMSD). System performance is evaluated in terms of the accepted-only quantum bit error rate (QBER), where underwater turbulence is modeled by an Erlang distribution. Analytical and semi-closed-form QBER expressions are derived for the three configurations and validated through Monte Carlo simulations for different water types and system parameters. The results show close agreement between analytical and simulation results and demonstrate that VPS-QMSD provides the best robustness against underwater turbulence, achieving the lowest QBER compared with VPS-QMLD and VPS-HD.

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