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arXiv · 1812.09644

Higher dimensional quantum communication in a curved spacetime: an efficient simulation of the propagation of the wavefront of a photon

Warner A. Miller·Paul M. Alsing·Doyeol Ahn
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Abstract

A photon with a modulated wavefront can produce a quantum communication channel in a larger Hilbert space. For example, higher dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) can encode information in the transverse linear momentum (LM) or orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes of a photon. This is markedly different than using the intrinsic polarization of a photon. HD-QKD has advantages for free space QKD since it can increase the communication channel\~Os tolerance to bit error rate (BER) while maintaining or increasing the channels bandwidth. We describe an efficient numerical simulation of the propagation photon with an arbitrary complex wavefront in a material with an isotropic but inhomogeneous index of refraction. We simulate the waveform propagation of an optical vortex in a volume holographic element in the paraxial approximation using an operator splitting method. We use this code to analyze an OAM volume-holographic sorter. Furthermore, there are analogue models of the evolution of a wavefront in the curved spacetime environs of the Earth that can be constructed using an optical medium with a given index of refraction. This can lead to a work-bench realization of a satellite HD-QKD system.

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Warner A. Miller, Paul M. Alsing, Doyeol Ahn. 2018-12-23. Higher dimensional quantum communication in a curved spacetime: an efficient simulation of the propagation of the wavefront of a photon. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2305060

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