Capacity of optical communication in loss and noise with general quantum Gaussian receivers

Masahiro Takeoka, Saikat Guha

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Laser-light (coherent-state) modulation is sufficient to achieve the ultimate (Holevo) capacity of classical communication over a lossy and noisy optical channel, but requires a receiver that jointly detects long modulated codewords with highly nonlinear quantum operations, which are near-impossible to realize using current technology. We analyze the capacity of the lossy-noisy optical channel when the transmitter uses coherent state modulation but the receiver is restricted to a general quantum-limited Gaussian receiver, i.e., one that may involve arbitrary combinations of Gaussian operations (passive linear optics: beamsplitters and phase-shifters, second order nonlinear process (squeezers), along with homodyne or heterodyne detection measurements) and any amount of classical feedforward within the receiver. Under these assumptions, we show that the Gaussian receiver that attains the maximum mutual information is either homodyne detection, heterodyne detection, or time sharing between the two, depending upon the received power level. In other words, our result shows that to exceed the theoretical limit of conventional coherent optical communications, one has to incorporate non-Gaussian (i.e. higher order nonlinear) operations in the receiver.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2014 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, ISIT 2014
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages2799-2803
Number of pages5
ISBN (Print)9781479951864
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event2014 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, ISIT 2014 - Honolulu, HI, United States
Duration: Jun 29 2014Jul 4 2014

Publication series

NameIEEE International Symposium on Information Theory - Proceedings
ISSN (Print)2157-8095

Other

Other2014 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, ISIT 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityHonolulu, HI
Period6/29/147/4/14

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Applied Mathematics

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