Optical Downlink Modeling for LEO and MEO Satellites under Atmospheric Turbulence with a Quantum State Tomography Use Case
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2512.13828 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 15 Dec 2025] Title:Optical Downlink Modeling for LEO and MEO Satellites under Atmospheric Turbulence with a Quantum State Tomography Use Case Authors:Artur Czerwinski, Jakub J. Borkowski, Saeed Haddadi View a PDF of the paper titled Optical Downlink Modeling for LEO and MEO Satellites under Atmospheric Turbulence with a Quantum State Tomography Use Case, by Artur Czerwinski and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the link budget for free-space optical systems involving Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites. We develop a detailed model of the satellite-to-ground channel that accounts for the primary physical processes affecting transmittance: atmospheric absorption and scattering, free-space diffraction, and turbulence-induced fluctuations. The study introduces a general method for computing transmittance along a slant path between a satellite and an optical ground station, incorporating zenith angle, slant range, and altitude-dependent attenuation. The proposed framework is intended to support the design and evaluation of space-based optical links and serves as a critical tool for defining technical specifications in satellite communication demonstrators and simulations. Numerical estimates are provided to illustrate the magnitude of losses under typical operational conditions, including the role of aperture averaging. In addition to the link budget analysis, we introduce a satellite-based quantum use case. We propose a scheme for quantum state tomography performed on states generated by an onboard photon source on an LEO or MEO satellite and transmitted to the optical ground station. This approach enables continuous verification of the quality of quantum resources that can be used to perform quantum protocols within quantum information networks. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph); Optics (physics.optics); Space Physics (physics.space-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2512.13828 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2512.13828v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.13828 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Artur Czerwinski [view email] [v1] Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:09:37 UTC (573 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Optical Downlink Modeling for LEO and MEO Satellites under Atmospheric Turbulence with a Quantum State Tomography Use Case, by Artur Czerwinski and 2 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2025-12 Change to browse by: physics physics.comp-ph physics.optics physics.space-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)