Quantum bit error rate in modeled atmospheres

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum bit error rate in atmospheric conditions for quantum communication, using an experimental model to simulate atmospheric effects on photon polarization in a BB84 protocol.

Contribution

It introduces an experimental setup to model atmospheric effects on quantum channels, enabling controlled studies of quantum bit error rates under different meteorological conditions.

Findings

Measured quantum bit error rates in a simulated atmospheric environment.

Demonstrated the impact of atmospheric depolarization on quantum communication fidelity.

Established a foundation for future atmospheric quantum communication experiments.

Abstract

The quantum bit error rate is a key quantity in quantum communications. If the quantum channel is the atmosphere, the information is usually encoded in the polarization of a photon. A link budget is required, which takes into account the depolarization of the photon after its interaction with the atmosphere as well as absorption, scattering and atmospheric emissions. An experimental setup for the reproduction of a simple model of the atmosphere is used to evaluate the quantum bit error rate in a BB84 protocol and the results are presented. This result represents a first step toward the realization of an optical bench experiment where atmospheric effects are simulated and controlled for reproducing the effects on a quantum channel in different meteorological situations.