Quantum-limited measurements of optical signals from a geostationary satellite
Abstract
The measurement of quantum signals that traveled through long distances is of fundamental and technological interest. We present quantum-limited coherent measurements of optical signals, sent from a satellite in geostationary Earth orbit to an optical ground station. We bound the excess noise that the quantum states could have acquired after having propagated 38600 km through Earth's gravitational potential as well as its turbulent atmosphere. Our results indicate that quantum communication is feasible in principle in such a scenario, highlighting the possibility of a global quantum key distribution network for secure communication.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1608.03511,
title = {Quantum-limited measurements of optical signals from a geostationary satellite},
author = {Kevin Günthner and Imran Khan and Dominique Elser and Birgit Stiller and Ömer Bayraktar and Christian R. Müller and Karen Saucke and Daniel Tröndle and Frank Heine and Stefan Seel and Peter Greulich and Herwig Zech and Björn Gütlich and Sabine Philipp-May and Christoph Marquardt and Gerd Leuchs},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.03511},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
8 pages (4 pages main article, 4 pages supplementary material), 9 figures (4 figures main article, 5 figures supplementary material), Kevin G\"unthner and Imran Khan contributed equally to this work