Subcarrier Domain of Multicarrier Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution

Abstract: We propose the subcarrier domain of multicarrier continuous-variable (CV) quantum key distribution (QKD). In a multicarrier CVQKD scheme, the information is granulated into Gaussian subcarrier CVs and the physical Gaussian link is divided into Gaussian sub-channels. The sub-channels are dedicated for the conveying of the subcarrier CVs. The angular domain utilizes the phase-space angles of the Gaussian subcarrier CVs to construct the physical model of a Gaussian sub-channel. The subcarrier domain injects physical attributes to the description of the subcarrier transmission. We prove that the subcarrier domain is a natural representation of the subcarrier-level transmission in a multicarrier CVQKD scheme. We also extend the subcarrier domain to a multiple-access multicarrier CVQKD setting. We demonstrate the results through the adaptive multicarrier quadrature-division (AMQD) CVQKD scheme and the AMQD-MQA (multiuser quadrature allocation) multiple-access multicarrier scheme. The subcarrier domain representation provides a general apparatus that can be utilized for an arbitrary multicarrier CVQKD scenario. The framework is particularly convenient for experimental multicarrier CVQKD scenarios.