High-dimensional Reconciliation for Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution over a Free-Space Optical Channel

One of the most important aspects of continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) is the reconciliation step, which significantly impacts the performance of the CV-QKD system. We simulate the impact of discrete modulation on the reconciliation efficiency and consider the use of $d$-dimensional reconciliation with $d > 8$ to mitigate this impact, improving reconciliation efficiencies by up to 3.4\%. We validate our results by experimentally demonstrating CV-QKD over a turbulent FSO link and demonstrate SKR gains by up to 165\%.