Quantum technologies in space

Rainer Kaltenbaek, Antonio Acin, Laszlo Bacsardi, Paolo Bianco, Philippe Bouyer, Eleni Diamanti, Christoph Marquardt, Yasser Omar, Valerio Pruneri, Ernst Rasel, Bernhard Sang, Stephan Seidel, Hendrik Ulbricht, Rupert Ursin, Paolo Villoresi, Mathias van den Bossche, Wolf von Klitzing, Hugo Zbinden, Mauro Paternostro*, Angelo Bassi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

38 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Recently, the European Commission supported by many European countries has announced large investments towards the commercialization of quantum technology (QT) to address and mitigate some of the biggest challenges facing today’s digital era – e.g. secure communication and computing power. For more than two decades the QT community has been working on the development of QTs, which promise landmark breakthroughs leading to commercialization in various areas. The ambitious goals of the QT community and expectations of EU authorities cannot be met solely by individual initiatives of single countries, and therefore, require a combined European effort of large and unprecedented dimensions comparable only to the Galileo or Copernicus programs. Strong international competition calls for a coordinated European effort towards the development of QT in and for space, including research and development of technology in the areas of communication and sensing. Here, we aim at summarizing the state of the art in the development of quantum technologies which have an impact in the field of space applications. Our goal is to outline a complete framework for the design, development, implementation, and exploitation of quantum technology in space.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1677-1694
Number of pages18
JournalExperimental Astronomy
Volume51
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
RK, CM, WK, HU, MP, and AB acknowledge support by the COST Action QTSpace (CA15220). AA and VP acknowledge funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No 820466 (CiViQ). AA acknowledges financial support from the ERC AdG CERQUTE, the AXA Chair in Quantum Information Science, the Government of Spain (FIS2020-TRANQI and Severo Ochoa CEX2019-000910-S), Fundació Cellex, Fundació Mir-Puig, Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA, AGAUR SGR 1381). RK acknowledges support by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (projects 854036, 865996) and by the Slovenian Research Agency (research projects N1-0180, J2-2514, J1-9145 and P1-0125). WK acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2019-2020-01 under grant agreement No 863127 “nanoLace” and the contribution of the AtomQT COST Action CA16221. ED acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreements No. 820466 (CiViQ) and 857156 (OpenQKD). ER’s contribution to the presented work is supported by the CRC 1227 DQmat within the project B07, the EXC 2123 Quantum Frontiers within the research units B02 and B05, the QUEST-LFS, the German Space Agency (DLR) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) due to an enactment of the German Bundestag under Grant No. DLR 50WP1431 (QUANTUS-IV-MAIUS), 50WM1952 (QUANTUS-V-Fallturm), 50WP1700 (BECCAL), 50RK1957 (QGYRO), and the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under Grant No. VDI 13 N14838 (TAIOL). ER acknowledges financial support from “Niedersächsisches Vorab” through “Förderung von Wissenschaft und Technik in Forschung und Lehre “for the initial funding of research in the new DLR-SI Institute and through the ``Quantum- and Nano-Metrology (QUANOMET)” initiative within the project QT3. AB acknowledges financial support from the H2020 FET Project TEQ (Grant No. 766900), INFN, FQXi and the University of Trieste. MP thanks the H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2020 TEQ (grant nr. 766900), the DfE-SFI Investigator Programme (grant 15/IA/2864), the Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellowship (RSWF\R3\183013), the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (grant nr. RGP-2018-266), the UK EPSRC (grant nr. EP/T028106/1). LB thanks the support of the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the support of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology and the National Research, Development and Innovation Office within the Quantum Information National Laboratory of Hungary. HU acknowledges financial support from the EU H2020 FET project TEQ (Grant No. 766900), the Leverhulme Trust (Grant No. RPG-2016-046), and the UKRI Research England SPRINT project SIGMA. PV acknowledges support from the Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca under the initiative “Departments of Excellence” (Law 232/2016). YO thanks the support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal), namely through project UIDB/50008/2020 and from project QuantSat-PT. PB acknowledges support from CNES through the ICE technology development program, and the GRICE and CARIOCA mission studies. C-COOL is supported by ESA for the elaboration of a scientific and technical roadmap.

Funding Information:
RK, CM, WK, HU, MP, and AB acknowledge support by the COST Action QTSpace (CA15220). AA and VP acknowledge funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No 820466 (CiViQ). AA acknowledges financial support from the ERC AdG CERQUTE, the AXA Chair in Quantum Information Science, the Government of Spain (FIS2020-TRANQI and Severo Ochoa CEX2019-000910-S), Fundació Cellex, Fundació Mir-Puig, Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA, AGAUR SGR 1381). RK acknowledges support by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (projects 854036, 865996) and by the Slovenian Research Agency (research projects N1-0180, J2-2514, J1-9145 and P1-0125). WK acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2019-2020-01 under grant agreement No 863127 “nanoLace” and the contribution of the AtomQT COST Action CA16221. ED acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreements No. 820466 (CiViQ) and 857156 (OpenQKD). ER’s contribution to the presented work is supported by the CRC 1227 DQmat within the project B07, the EXC 2123 Quantum Frontiers within the research units B02 and B05, the QUEST-LFS, the German Space Agency (DLR) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) due to an enactment of the German Bundestag under Grant No. DLR 50WP1431 (QUANTUS-IV-MAIUS), 50WM1952 (QUANTUS-V-Fallturm), 50WP1700 (BECCAL), 50RK1957 (QGYRO), and the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under Grant No. VDI 13 N14838 (TAIOL). ER acknowledges financial support from “Niedersächsisches Vorab” through “Förderung von Wissenschaft und Technik in Forschung und Lehre “for the initial funding of research in the new DLR-SI Institute and through the ``Quantum- and Nano-Metrology (QUANOMET)” initiative within the project QT3. AB acknowledges financial support from the H2020 FET Project TEQ (Grant No. 766900), INFN, FQXi and the University of Trieste. MP thanks the H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2020 TEQ (grant nr. 766900), the DfE-SFI Investigator Programme (grant 15/IA/2864), the Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellowship (RSWF\R3\183013), the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (grant nr. RGP-2018-266), the UK EPSRC (grant nr. EP/T028106/1). LB thanks the support of the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the support of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology and the National Research, Development and Innovation Office within the Quantum Information National Laboratory of Hungary. HU acknowledges financial support from the EU H2020 FET project TEQ (Grant No. 766900), the Leverhulme Trust (Grant No. RPG-2016-046), and the UKRI Research England SPRINT project SIGMA. PV acknowledges support from the Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca under the initiative “Departments of Excellence” (Law 232/2016). YO thanks the support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal), namely through project UIDB/50008/2020 and from project QuantSat-PT. PB acknowledges support from CNES through the ICE technology development program, and the GRICE and CARIOCA mission studies. C-COOL is supported by ESA for the elaboration of a scientific and technical roadmap.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

Keywords

  • Entanglement
  • Fundamental tests
  • Quantum communication
  • Quantum sensing
  • Quantum technology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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