Sudden Death of Entanglement induced by Polarization Mode Dispersion

TL;DR

This paper investigates how polarization mode dispersion in optical fibers causes sudden entanglement death, affecting quantum communication protocols, and explores the interplay between decoherence, non-locality, and decoherence-free subspaces.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of entanglement decoherence due to polarization mode dispersion and defines the operational boundaries for fiber-based quantum communication.

Findings

Polarization mode dispersion can induce sudden death of entanglement.

The study identifies conditions for decoherence-free sub-spaces in fiber optics.

Implications for the reliability of quantum communication protocols over fibers.

Abstract

We study the decoherence of polarization-entangled photon pairs subject to the effects of polarization mode dispersion, the chief polarization decoherence mechanism in optical fibers. We show that fiber propagation reveals an intriguing interplay between the concepts of entanglement sudden death, decoherence-free sub-spaces and non-locality. We define the boundaries in which entanglement-based quantum communications protocols relying on fiber propagation can be applied.