Approaching the ultimate capacity limit in deep-space optical communication

The information capacity of an optical channel under power constraints is ultimately limited by the quantum nature of transmitted signals. We discuss currently available and emerging photonic technologies whose combination can be shown theoretically to enable nearly quantum-limited operation of a noisy optical communication link in the photon-starved regime, with the information rate scaling linearly in the detected signal power. The key ingredients are quantum pulse gating to facilitate mode selectivity, photon-number-resolved direct detection, and a photon-efficient high-order modulation format such as pulse position modulation, frequency shift keying, or binary phase shift keyed Hadamard words decoded optically using structured receivers.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. Presented at Free-Space Laser Communications XXXI, 4-6 February 2019, San Francisco, C

Synchronised laser chaos communication: statistical investigation of an experimental system

The paper is concerned with analyzing data from an experimental antipodal laser-based chaos shift-keying communication system. Binary messages are embedded in a chaotically behaving laser wave which is transmitted through a fiber-optic cable and are decoded at the receiver using a second laser synchronized with the emitter laser. Instrumentation in the experimental system makes it particularly interesting to be able to empirically analyze both optical noise and synchronization error as well as bit error rate. Both the noise and error are found to significantly depart in distribution from independent Gaussian. The conclusion from bit error rate results is that the antipodal laser chaos shift-keying system can offer a feasible approach to optical communication. The non-Gaussian optical noise and synchronous error results are a challenge to current theoretical modelling

Adaptive Measurements in the Optical Quantum Information Laboratory

Adaptive techniques make practical many quantum measurements that would otherwise be beyond current laboratory capabilities. For example: they allow discrimination of nonorthogonal states with a probability of error equal to the Helstrom bound; they allow measurement of the phase of a quantum oscillator with accuracy approaching (or in some cases attaining) the Heisenberg limit; and they allow estimation of phase in interferometry with a variance scaling at the Heisenberg limit, using only single qubit measurement and control. Each of these examples has close links with quantum information, in particular experimental optical quantum information: the first is a basic quantum communication protocol; the second has potential application in linear optical quantum computing; the third uses an adaptive protocol inspired by the quantum phase estimation algorithm. We discuss each of these examples, and their implementation in the laboratory, but concentrate upon the last, which was published most recently [Higgins {\em et al.}, Nature vol. 450, p. 393, 2007].Comment: 12 pages, invited paper to be published in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics: Quantum Communications and Information Scienc

Implementation of generalized quantum measurements: superadditive quantum coding, accessible information extraction, and classical capacity limit

Quantum information theory predicts that when the transmission resource is doubled in quantum channels, the amount of information transmitted can be increased more than twice by quantum channel coding technique, whereas the increase is at most twice in classical information theory. This remarkable feature, the superadditive quantum coding gain, can be implemented by appropriate choices of code words and corresponding quantum decoding which requires a collective quantum measurement. Recently, the first experimental demonstration was reported [Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 167906 (2003)]. The purpose of this paper is to describe our experiment in detail. Particularly, a design strategy of quantum collective decoding in physical quantum circuits is emphasized. We also address the practical implication of the gain on communication performance by introducing the quantum-classical hybrid coding scheme. We show how the superadditive quantum coding gain, even in a small code length, can boost the communication performance of conventional coding technique.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figure

Toward Photon-Efficient Key Distribution over Optical Channels

This work considers the distribution of a secret key over an optical (bosonic) channel in the regime of high photon efficiency, i.e., when the number of secret key bits generated per detected photon is high. While in principle the photon efficiency is unbounded, there is an inherent tradeoff between this efficiency and the key generation rate (with respect to the channel bandwidth). We derive asymptotic expressions for the optimal generation rates in the photon-efficient limit, and propose schemes that approach these limits up to certain approximations. The schemes are practical, in the sense that they use coherent or temporally-entangled optical states and direct photodetection, all of which are reasonably easy to realize in practice, in conjunction with off-the-shelf classical codes.Comment: In IEEE Transactions on Information Theory; same version except that labels are corrected for Schemes S-1, S-2, and S-3, which appear as S-3, S-4, and S-5 in the Transaction

Superadditivity of Quantum Channel Coding Rate with Finite Blocklength Joint Measurements

The maximum rate at which classical information can be reliably transmitted per use of a quantum channel strictly increases in general with $N$, the number of channel outputs that are detected jointly by the quantum joint-detection receiver (JDR). This phenomenon is known as superadditivity of the maximum achievable information rate over a quantum channel. We study this phenomenon for a pure-state classical-quantum (cq) channel and provide a lower bound on $C_N/N$, the maximum information rate when the JDR is restricted to making joint measurements over no more than $N$ quantum channel outputs, while allowing arbitrary classical error correction. We also show the appearance of a superadditivity phenomenon---of mathematical resemblance to the aforesaid problem---in the channel capacity of a classical discrete memoryless channel (DMC) when a concatenated coding scheme is employed, and the inner decoder is forced to make hard decisions on $N$-length inner codewords. Using this correspondence, we develop a unifying framework for the above two notions of superadditivity, and show that for our lower bound to $C_N/N$ to be equal to a given fraction of the asymptotic capacity $C$ of the respective channel, $N$ must be proportional to $V/C^2$, where $V$ is the respective channel dispersion quantity.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor