Interstellar Communication. VIII. Hard limits on the number of bits per photon
arXiv:1801.06218
Abstract
A photon can encode several bits of information based on an alphabet of its time of arrival, energy, and polarization. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle places a limit on measuring pairs of physical properties of a particle, limiting the maximal information efficiency to <59 bits per photon in practice, and <171 bits per photon at Planck energy, at a data rate of one photon per second.
3 pages, 1 figure