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arXiv · 1801.06218

Interstellar Communication. VIII. Hard limits on the number of bits per photon

Michael Hippke
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Abstract

A photon can encode several bits of information based on an alphabet of its time of arrival, energy, and polarization. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle places a limit on measuring pairs of physical properties of a particle, limiting the maximal information efficiency to <59 bits per photon in practice, and <171 bits per photon at Planck energy, at a data rate of one photon per second.

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Michael Hippke. 2018-01-18. Interstellar Communication. VIII. Hard limits on the number of bits per photon. https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.06218

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