Pathways for Entanglement-Based Quantum Communication in the Face of High Noise

Entanglement-based quantum communication offers an increased level of security in practical secret shared key distribution. One the fundamental principles enabling this security---the fact that interfering with one photon will destroy entanglement and thus be detectable---is also greatest obstacle. Random encounters traveling photons, losses, technical imperfections make noise inevitable part any scheme, severely limiting distance, rate, environmental conditions which distribution can employed. Using photons entangled their spatial degree freedom, we show resistance high-dimensional indeed harnessed for schemes. We perform eight paths at various levels rates that, even after error correction privacy amplification, still exceed 1 bit per pair furthermore certify a secure would prohibit comparable qubit based schemes from working.