Sequential state discrimination of coherent states

Abstract

Sequential state discrimination is a strategy for quantum state discrimination of a sender’s quantum states when N receivers are separately located. In this report, we propose optical designs that can perform sequential state discrimination of two coherent states. For this purpose, we consider not only binary phase-shifting-key (BPSK) signals but also general coherent states, with arbitrary prior probabilities. Since our optical designs do not include electric feedback, they can be implemented without difficulty. Furthermore, we analyze our proposal for the case of photon loss. We also demonstrate that sequential state discrimination of two coherent states performs better than the probabilistic quantum cloning strategy. This proposal can facilitate multiparty QKD based on coherent states.