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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

Polarization transformation induced on qubits in a Space-to-Earth quantum communication link

Cristian Bonato, Markus Aspelmeyer, Thomas D. Jennewein, Claudio Pernechele, Paolo Villoresi, Anton Zeilinger

Published May 1, 2007• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We analyze the sources of polarization transformation for single photons in a Space-to-Earth quantum communication link, particularly the satellite pointing system, giving an estimate of the effect and discussing possible compensation techniques.
DOI
10.1109/qels.2007.4431693

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Satellite networks and quantum communications offer complementary opportunities for enhanced operations. Quantum communications provide security for the transmissions between satellites and ground stations; while the free-space link of satellite networks provide the potential of long distance transmission of quantum bits (qubit) for space communications. However, with the promising advantages of the two approaches, challenges remain to fully develop quantum-based satellite communications such as robust and reliable information detection which is difficult to achieve due to the movement of satellites. In this paper, a tracking algorithm is proposed for polarization-encoded quantum satellite communications where polarization states are used to determine the bit transfer between the transmitter and receiver. The polarization tracking is essential for the decoding of a qubit and the quantum key distribution (QKD). A practical channel model for free-space quantum communications is adopted in this paper. With the estimated polarization, a novel dynamic polarization compensation scheme is also proposed. The results show that our methods can accurately estimate the polarization, providing much lower quantum bit error rate (QBER) by compensation, as compared with the direct qubit detection without polarization tracking and compensation scheme.
Real global-scale quantum communications and quantum key distribution systems cannot be implemented by the current fiber and free-space links. These links have high attenuation, low polarization-preserving capability or extreme sensitivity to the environment. A potential solution to the problem is the space-earth quantum channels. These channels have no absorption since the signal states are propagated in empty space, however a small fraction of these channels is in the atmosphere, which causes slight depolarizing effect. Furthermore, the relative motion of the ground station and the satellite causes a rotation in the polarization of the quantum states. In the current approaches to compensate for these types of polarization errors, high computational costs and extra physical apparatuses are required. Here we introduce a novel approach which breaks with the traditional views of currently developed quantum-error correction schemes. The proposed solution can be applied to fix the polarization errors which are critical in space-earth quantum communication systems. The channel coding scheme provides capacity-achieving communication over slightly depolarizing space-earth channels.
A general model in satellite-to-ground quantum communication is proposed by investigating the effect of a laser acquisition, pointing, and tracking (APT) system on the polarization state of single photons. The eccentricity of the general model ranges from 0 to 1, which means that a circular orbit can be introduced reasonably. Moreover, the geocentric-equatorial coordinate system, which can utilize the two-line elements, is used in the general model. Two kinds of simulations are performed, and we found that the rotations of polarization state are obviously influenced by the APT system. Our model could be applied in a realistic satellite-to-ground quantum communication system.