Spatially Adaptive Detection for Satellite-based QKD under Atmospheric Turbulence Channel
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2605.16678 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 15 May 2026] Title:Spatially Adaptive Detection for Satellite-based QKD under Atmospheric Turbulence Channel Authors:Yaoxuan Yang, Ivi Afxenti, Majid Safari View a PDF of the paper titled Spatially Adaptive Detection for Satellite-based QKD under Atmospheric Turbulence Channel, by Yaoxuan Yang and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides information-theoretic security and satellite-based quantum key distribution (SatQKD) has demonstrated the potential to extend this communication security to intercontinental scales. However, atmospheric turbulence induces significant distortion in the spatial distribution of received optical beams, while background noise remains approximately uniform across the detector plane. As a result, single-element qubit (quantum bit) detection can be frequently dominated by noise due to the random spatial pattern of the imaged wavefront, thereby degrading the system performance. To address this limitation, we propose to exploit the spatial degrees of freedom of single-photon detector arrays to reject the excessive noise while adapting to channel variations induced by turbulence. We develop a threshold-based selection method that only activates detector elements that have higher probability of registering qubits. We evaluate the performance of the proposed noise-rejection QKD schemes using Monte Carlo simulations considering the impact of diffraction and atmospheric turbulence on the transmitted optical beam in the presence of background and dark noise. The results show that, compared to conventional schemes, the proposed noise-rejection strategy effectively reduces the quantum bit error rate (QBER) and improves the secret key rate (SKR) performance, while the performance gains depend on the turbulence condition. These findings demonstrate the potential of adaptive array receiver design to enhance the robustness of the SatQKD system under realistic atmospheric conditions. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Signal Processing (eess.SP) Cite as: arXiv:2605.16678 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2605.16678v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.16678 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Majid Safari [view email] [v1] Fri, 15 May 2026 22:33:03 UTC (620 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Spatially Adaptive Detection for Satellite-based QKD under Atmospheric Turbulence Channel, by Yaoxuan Yang and 2 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-05 Change to browse by: cs cs.CR eess eess.SP 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?) 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?)