title: Atmospheric turbulence and orbital angular momentum of single photons for optical communication.
abstract: The effects of propagation through random aberrations on coherence for single-photon communication systems based on orbital angular momentum states are quantified. A rotational coherence function is derived which leads to scattering equations for azimuthal modes of different orbital angular momentum states. The effect on a single-photon communication system is quantified using the channel capacity. The work shows that the decoherence effect of atmospheric turbulence on such systems is important even for weak turbulence.
authors.affiliation: The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London SW7 2BW, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Paterson