Optimization of optical fiber parameters to reduce errors of quantum key distribution using entangled polarization states of biphotons
George P. Miroshnichenko, A. A. Sotnikova · Optics and Spectroscopy · 2012
A phenomenological Hamiltonian of photons in single-mode stochastic fiber depending on the vector of random parameters is proposed. The time dynamics of single-photon density matrix in the basis of states with orthogonal polarizations is considered. The fiber-parameter-averaged quantum bit error rate (QBER) in a sifted quantum key distributed over the BB84 protocol using entangled polarization states of biphotons is found. It is shown that QBER can be significantly reduced even at large dispersions of random fiber parameters. To this end, identically fabricated fibers must be used for quantum channels A and B. The choice of pairs of fiber segments must be correlated, with a correlation coefficient close to unity. This approach is based on a remarkable property of the singlet biphoton state, which is “free of collective decoherence.” A correlated choice of fiber segments for channels A and B reduces significantly QBER, making its value below critical (i.e., equal to 0.11, a level below which a distributed key is accepted for cryptographic purposes).