Restoring quantum communication efficiency over high loss optical fibres

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that by accounting for memory effects in optical fibres, it is possible to enable long-distance quantum communication at fixed positive rates without repeaters, and also achieve entanglement-assisted communication over arbitrary distances.

Contribution

It introduces schemes that leverage memory effects to restore quantum communication efficiency over long optical fibres without the need for quantum repeaters.

Findings

Unassisted quantum communication possible over arbitrary distances with fixed rate.

Entanglement-assisted communication achieves near-maximal rates over long distances.

Memory effects can be exploited to overcome transmissivity thresholds.

Abstract

In the absence of quantum repeaters, quantum communication proved to be nearly impossible across optical fibres longer than $\gtrsim 20\text{ km}$ due to the drop of transmissivity below the critical threshold of $1/2$. However, if the signals fed into the fibre are separated by a sufficiently short time interval, memory effects must be taken into account. In this paper we show that by properly accounting for these effects it is possible to devise schemes that enable unassisted quantum communication across arbitrarily long optical fibres at a fixed positive qubit transmission rate. We also demonstrate how to achieve entanglement-assisted communication over arbitrarily long distances at a rate of the same order of the maximum achievable in the unassisted noiseless case.