Simulations of continuum coherent states and its use in quantum cryptographic systems

Abstract

The continuum states formalism is suitable for field quantization in optical fibre; however, they are harder to use than discrete states. On the other hand, a Hermitian phase operator can be defined only in a finite dimensional space. We approximated a coherent continuum state by a finite tensor product of coherent states, each one defined in a finite dimensional space. Using this, in the correct limit, we were able to obtain some statistical properties of the photon number and phase of the continuum coherent states from the probability density functions of the individual, finite dimensional, coherent states. Then, we performed a simulation of the BB84 protocol, using the continuum coherent states, in a fibre interferometer commonly used in quantum cryptography. We observed the fluctuations of the mean photon number in the pulses that arrive at Bob, which occurs in the practical system, introduced by the statistical property of the simulation.