Quantum communication (QC), namely, the faithful transmission of generic quantum states, is a key ingredient of quantum information science. Here we demonstrate QC with polarization encoding from space to ground by exploiting satellite corner cube retroreflectors as quantum transmitters in orbit and the Matera Laser Ranging Observatory of the Italian Space Agency in Matera, Italy, as a quantum receiver. The quantum bit error ratio (QBER) has been kept steadily low to a level suitable for several quantum information protocols, as the violation of Bell inequalities or quantum key distribution (QKD). Indeed, by taking data from different satellites, we demonstrate an average value of QBER=4.6% for a total link duration of 85 s. The mean photon number per pulse μ_{sat} leaving the satellites was estimated to be of the order of one. In addition, we propose a fully operational satellite QKD system by exploiting our communication scheme with orbiting retroreflectors equipped with a modulator, a very compact payload. Our scheme paves the way toward the implementation of a QC worldwide network leveraging existing receivers.
New services and applications are causing an exponential increase in internet traffic. In a few years, current fiber optic communication system infrastructure will not be able to meet this demand because fiber nonlinearity dramatically limits the information transmission rate. Eigenvalue communication could potentially overcome these limitations. It relies on a mathematical technique called "nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT)" to exploit the "hidden" linearity of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation as the master model for signal propagation in an optical fiber. We present here the theoretical tools describing the NFT for the Manakov system and report on experimental transmission results for dual polarization in fiber optic eigenvalue communications. A transmission of up to 373.5 km with bit error rate less than the hard-decision forward error correction threshold has been achieved. Our results demonstrate that dual-polarization NFT can work in practice and enable an increased spectral efficiency in NFT-based communication systems, which are currently based on single polarization channels. OCIS codes:
Extending the single photon transmission distance is a basic requirement for the implementation of quantum communication on a global scale. In this work we report the single photon exchange from a medium Earth orbit satellite (MEO) at more than 7000 km of slant distance to the ground station at the Matera Laser Ranging Observatory. The single photon transmitter was realized by exploiting the corner cube retro-reflectors mounted on the LAGEOS-2 satellite. Long duration of data collection is possible with such altitude, up to 43 minutes in a single passage. The mean number of photons per pulse (µsat) has been limited to 1 for 200 seconds, resulting in an average detection rate of 3.0 counts/s and a signal to noise ratio of 1.5. The feasibility of single photon exchange from MEO satellites paves the way to tests of Quantum Mechanics in moving frames and to global Quantum Information.Introduction -Quantum Communications (QC) are necessary for tests on the foundation of Quantum Physics, such as Bell's inequalities violation [1][2][3], entanglement swapping [4,5] and distribution [6], and quantum teleportation [7]. Moreover, the transmission of light quanta over long distances is crucial for the realization of several Quantum Information protocols, as quantum key distribution (QKD) [8][9][10], quantum authentication [11] and quantum digital signature [12].
The nonlinear Fourier transform is a new approach of addressing the capacity limiting Kerr nonlinearities in optical communication systems. It exploits the property of integrability of the lossless nonlinear Schrödinger equation and thus incorporates nonlinearities as an element of the transmission. However, practical links employing erbium-doped fiber amplifiers include losses/gains and introduce noise which breaks the integrability of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Although the lossless path average approximation proposes an integrable model, its imprecision still leads to unintended distortions and thus performance degradation. We propose an alternative receiver for nonlinear frequency division multiplexing optical communication systems using techniques from machine learning. It is highly adaptive as it learns from previously transmitted pulses and thus holds no assumptions on the system and noise distribution. The detection method presented is fully applied in time-domain and omits the nonlinear Fourier transform. The numerical results provide a benchmark for nonlinear Fourier transform based detection of high order solitons for fiber links with losses and noise present.
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