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Acta Physica Sinica

Influence of surge movement in non-uniform water flow on performance of underwater quantum communication

Min Nie, Yue Pan, Guang Yang, Sun Ai-Jing, Yu Sai-Ya, Meiling Zhang, Changxing Pei

Published Jan 1, 2018• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum communication is brand new way of communication in which quantum entanglement is used to transmit information. It is an interdisciplinary subject combining quantum informatics with modern communication theory. Motivated by the communication requirements for underwater sensor networks, submarines, etc., underwater optical communication has been developing rapidly in recent years due to the ideal information security of quantum communication. However, the research on the performance of underwater quantum communication in sea has not yet been fully developed because of a series of factors such as surge, salinity and seaweed and so on. In this paper, the influence of surge in non-uniform water flow on the underwater quantum communication is studied theoretically and experimentally. Firstly, a new Boussinesq equation with a given flow function is derived based on the horizontal and vertical wave velocity of the free surface to represent the free surface boundary conditions. On the other hand, In view of the nonlinear motion of movement, the complexity of change and the randomness of the distribution, the spectrum is used for numerically calculating the surge. The characteristics of wave motion are described by wave height, period and wavelength. Secondly, the influence of surge on the entanglement of underwater quantum channel is analyzed. It is proved that the wave height of surge and the change of the cycle affect quantum communication due to the destruction of the quantum coherence and the reduction in quantum entanglement degree. Thirdly, the influence of surge motion on the quantum channel capacity is studied. The influence of the relation between the wavelength and the transmission cycle on the quantum channel capacity is simulated. The relationship between the physical characteristics of surge wave and the capacity of depolarized channel is established. Fourthly, the influence of surge motion on error rate in quantum key distribution is studied. The simulation results show that when the sea surface wind speed changes in a range of 0-20.5 m/s, the propagation cycle is increased gradually. The channel entanglement is increased from 0.0012 to 0.8426, and the channel capacity is reduced from 0.8736 to 0.1024. In the key distribution process, the quantum bit error rate increases from 0.1651 to 0.4812. Therefore, in underwater quantum communication, the parameters of the system should be adjusted adaptively according to the varying degree of the surge movement.

DOI
10.7498/aps.67.20180078

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Quantum communication is brand new way of communication in which quantum entanglement is used to transmit information. It is an interdisciplinary subject combining quantum informatics with modern communication theory. Motivated by the communication requirements for underwater sensor networks, submarines, etc., underwater optical communication has been developing rapidly in recent years due to the ideal information security of quantum communication. However, the research on the performance of underwater quantum communication in sea has not yet been fully developed because of a series of factors such as surge, salinity and seaweed and so on. In this paper, the influence of surge in non-uniform water flow on the underwater quantum communication is studied theoretically and experimentally. Firstly, a new Boussinesq equation with a given flow function is derived based on the horizontal and vertical wave velocity of the free surface to represent the free surface boundary conditions. On the other hand, In view of the nonlinear motion of movement, the complexity of change and the randomness of the distribution, the spectrum is used for numerically calculating the surge. The characteristics of wave motion are described by wave height, period and wavelength. Secondly, the influence of surge on the entanglement of underwater quantum channel is analyzed. It is proved that the wave height of surge and the change of the cycle affect quantum communication due to the destruction of the quantum coherence and the reduction in quantum entanglement degree. Thirdly, the influence of surge motion on the quantum channel capacity is studied. The influence of the relation between the wavelength and the transmission cycle on the quantum channel capacity is simulated. The relationship between the physical characteristics of surge wave and the capacity of depolarized channel is established. Fourthly, the influence of surge motion on error rate in quantum key distribution is studied. The simulation results show that when the sea surface wind speed changes in a range of 0-20.5 m/s, the propagation cycle is increased gradually. The channel entanglement is increased from 0.0012 to 0.8426, and the channel capacity is reduced from 0.8736 to 0.1024. In the key distribution process, the quantum bit error rate increases from 0.1651 to 0.4812. Therefore, in underwater quantum communication, the parameters of the system should be adjusted adaptively according to the varying degree of the surge movement.
Quantum communication at the sea-air interface is an important direction for expanding quantum information networks. However, current research has not sufficiently considered how waves and bubbles at this interface affect quantum communication. The paper develops a system combining the Cox-Munk sea surface wave model with the Hall-Novarini bubble scattering model, using Monte Carlo simulations to model photon propagation in air-sea channels. Based on data for different wind speeds (5–20 m/s) and four water types (pure, clear, coastal, harbor), the study examines how the sea-air interface influences quantum bit error rate (QBER) and received power for quantum communication. Results show that in pure seawater, higher wind speeds decrease the maximum secure communication depth from 63 m to 25 m. In waters with high turbidity, scattering effects dominate, limiting communication depth to within 10 m. This research identifies environmental thresholds for marine quantum channels, offering a theoretical basis and practical guidelines for designing and improving underwater quantum communication systems.
Considering the ocean water’s optical attenuation and the roughness of the sea surface, we analyze the security of continuous-variable (CV) quantum key distribution (QKD) based air-to-water channel. The effects of the absorption and scattering on the transmittance of underwater quantum channel and the maximum secure transmission distance are studied. Considering the roughness of the sea surface, we simulate the performance bounds of CV QKD with different wind speeds using the Monte Carlo method. The results show that even if the secret key rate gradually reduces as the wind speed increases, the maximum transmission distance will not be affected obviously. Compared to the works regarding short-distance underwater optical communication, our research represents a significant step towards establishing secure communication between air platform and submarine vehicle .
Abstract: As one of the main application directions of quantum technology, underwater quantum communication is of great research significance. In order to study the influence of marine planktonic algal particles on the communication performance of underwater quantum links, based on the extinction characteristics of marine planktonic algal particles, the influence of changes in the chlorophyll concentration and particle number density of planktonic algal particles on the attenuation of underwater links is explored respectively, the influence of marine planktonic algal particles on the fidelity of underwater quantum links, the generation rate of the security key, and the utilization rate of the channel is analyzed, and simulation experiments are carried out. The results show that with the increase in chlorophyll concentration and particle density of aquatic planktonic algal particles, quantum communication channel link attenuation shows a gradually increasing trend. In addition, the security key generation rate, channel fidelity and utilization rate are gradually decreasing. Therefore, the performance of underwater quantum communication channel will be interfered by marine planktonic algal particles, and it is necessary to adjust the relevant parameter values in the quantum communication system according to different marine planktonic algal particle number density and chlorophyll concentration to improve the performance of quantum communication.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) has been identified as a viable solution for secure underwater communication. This study aims to characterize the impact of natural turbulent waters on systems. The performance of QKD systems is analyzed in terms of the quantum bit error rate and the secret key rate. We expand upon previous studies which only considered large separations by including large and small separations by comparing the turbulence length scale with the distance between two observation points. To that end, we obtain the analytical expression of the wave structure function (WSF) for small separation for propagating Gaussian beams. Since the WSF describes how the amplitude and phase of an optical wave change as it travels through the varying refractive index of the turbulent medium over a given distance, the accurate characterization remains essential in terms of revealing the beam wavefront distortion. Leveraging the practical parameters of underwater environment and communication systems, we demonstrate that the average temperature, average salinity concentration, temperature-salinity gradient, temperature and energy dissipation rates of turbulent water impact the performance and security of the QKD systems to a nonnegligible extent. It is also observed that the waters having high chlorophyll concentrations, e.g., coastal waters, drastically decrease the performance of the QKD systems due to strong absorption and scattering effects. The findings and insights gained from this study may help advance secure underwater communication, which in turn will aid in establishing future QKD networks. Potential applications of this research include secure underwater communication for defense, data gathering for marine environmental monitoring, remote data transmission, and deep-sea exploration.
Underwater optical channels pose significant challenges to the security and reliability of quantum communication systems due to absorption and scattering. In this paper, we investigate the BBM92 entanglement-based quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol under realistic underwater channel conditions. Photon pairs are prepared in non-maximally entangled states, and the underwater propagation medium is modeled as a quantum channel incorporating both amplitude-damping and depolarizing effects, described within the Kraus operator formalism. The protocol performance is evaluated in terms of quantum bit error rate (QBER) and secret key rate (SKR), analyzed as functions of the entanglement degree and channel degradation parameters. Closed-form analytical expressions for the QBER and SKR are derived for the proposed channel model and validated through Monte Carlo simulations. The proposed framework is then applied to various realistic underwater scenarios, considering different water types, namely clear ocean, coastal, and turbid water, as well as varying atmospheric conditions.
The effect of the turbulent motion of ocean on the quantum communication based on the orbital angular momentum in an underwater quantum channel is studied in this work. Based on the power spectrum model of ocean turbulence proposed by Elamassie, the quantitative relationships of different ocean turbulence parameters with the single photon detection probability of orbital angular momentum photons, the channel capacity, the key generation rate, the concurrence of two entangled photons are proposed. The maximum entanglement distance of the orbital angular momentum entangled photon-pairs in the ocean turbulence is further studied by the universal entanglement decay of the concurrence of entangled photon-pairs in the ocean turbulence. The results show that the detection probability of single photon, the channel capacity, the key generation rate, and the concurrence of entangled photon-pairs decrease with the increase of the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy and the decrease of the rate of dissipation of mean-squared temperature. The influence of the temperature and salinity balance parameter of ocean turbulence on the performance of underwater quantum communication are significantly different under the condition of whether the stable stratification of seawater is assumed or not. In the ocean turbulent environment, the increasing of the initial orbital angular momentum quantum number of signal photons can improve the key generation rate of quantum key distribution and the resistance of entangled photons to entanglement decay.