Preserving Nonclassicality in Noisy Communication Channels

Nowadays, the transmission of quantum information, especially for the distribution of cryptographic keys, is required on a global scale. The main obstacle to overcome in free-space communication is the presence of turbulence, which causes both spatial and temporal deformations of the light signals that code information. Here we investigate the extent at which the transmission of mesoscopic twin-beam states through asymmetric noisy channels degrades the nonclassical nature of the photon-number correlations between signal and idler. We consider three nonclassicality criteria, all written in terms of measurable quantities, and demonstrate, both theoretically and experimentally, that the asymmetry introduced by losses affects the three criteria in different ways.