Quantum Noise in Communication Channels

Pramode K. Verma, Mayssaa El Rifai, Kam Wai Clifford Chan

M. T. DiMario, L. Kunz, K. Banaszek +1 more

Abstract The achievable rate of information transfer in optical communications is determined by the physical properties of the communication channel, such as the intrinsic channel noise. Bosonic phase noise channels, a class of non-Gaussian channels, have emerged as a relevant noise model in quantum information and optical communication. However, while the fundamental limits for communication over Gaussian channels have been extensively studied, the properties of communication over Bosonic phase noise channels are not well understood. Here we propose and demonstrate experimentally the concept of optimized communication strategies for communication over phase noise channels to enhance information transfer beyond what is possible with conventional methods of modulation and detection. Two key ingredients are generalized constellations of coherent states that interpolate between standard on-off keying and binary phase-shift keying formats, and non-Gaussian measurements based on photon number resolving detection of the coherently displaced signal. For a given power constraint and channel noise strength, these novel strategies rely on joint optimization of the input alphabet and the measurement to provide enhanced communication capability over a non-Gaussian channel characterized in terms of the error rate as well as mutual information.

David E. McClelland, N. Mavalvala, Roman Schnabel

Jin-Hun Kim, Yosep Kim, Dong-Gil Im +4 more

Quantum information protocols are being deployed in increasingly practical scenarios, via optical fibers or free space, alongside classical communications channels. However, entanglement, the most critical resource to deploy to the communicating parties, is also the most fragile to the noise-induced degradations. Here we show that polarization-frequency hyperentanglement of photons can be effectively employed to enable noise-resistant distribution of polarization entanglement through noisy quantum channels. In particular, we demonstrate that our hyperentanglement-based scheme results in an orders-of-magnitude increase in the SNR for distribution of polarization-entangled qubit pairs, enabling quantum communications even in the presence of strong noise that would otherwise preclude quantum operations due to noise-induced entanglement sudden death. While recent years have witnessed tremendous interest and progress in long-distance quantum communications, previous attempts to deal with the noise have mostly been focused on passive noise suppression in quantum channels. Here, via the use of hyperentangled degrees of freedom, we pave the way toward a universally adoptable strategy to enable entanglement-based quantum communications via strongly noisy quantum channels.

Xiaowei Deng, Shuhong Hao, Caixing Tian +3 more

Squeezed state can increase the signal-to-noise ratio in quantum communication and quantum measurement. However, losses and noises existing in real communication channels will reduce or even totally destroy the squeezing. The phenomenon of disappearance of the squeezing will result in the failure of quantum communication. In this letter, we present the experimental demonstrations on the disappearance and revival of the squeezing in quantum communication with squeezed state. The experimental results show that the squeezed light is robust (squeezing never disappears) in a pure lossy but noiseless channel. While in a noisy channel, the excess noise will lead to the disappearance of the squeezing, and the squeezing can be revived by the use of a correlated noisy channel (non-Markovian environment). The channel capacity of quantum communication is increased after the squeezing is revived. The presented results provide useful technical references for quantum communication with squeezed light.

Malin Premaratne, Govind P. Agrawal