While travelling by bus, I notice a passenger’s T-shirt featuring Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
The painting’s vibrant, dreamlike depiction of night captures the atmospheric veil distorting starlight. Van Gogh’s impression of swirling energy portrays how light breaks up into small whirlpools, transforming the scene.
Seemingly innocent, the above observation has crucial repercussions for developing one of Europe’s most ambitious technological initiatives.
The European Commission’s plan seeks to create an infrastructure that connects the entire continent through a highly secure communications network called the European Quantum Communications Infrastructure (EuroQCI). This network exploits the sensitivity of quantum systems, where the smallest particle of light – a photon – ensures the privacy of communications, on which we increasingly rely.
A critical link to enable long-distance communications involves satellites communicating with ground stations in different countries, which is crucial for the integration of Malta into the network.
The University of Malta (UM) is a partner of the QUDICE project (Quantum devices and subsystems for communications in space), focusing on developing and studying quantum communication channels for satellite-ground links alongside a 5G network.
Just as Van Gogh had to capture the distortion of light to create his magnum opus, the team led by Johann Briffa at the Faculty of ICT is modelling how atmospheric turbulence affects the light signals sent from satellites to ground stations to improve the quality of quantum communications.
A mathematical model of the satellite-ground channel allows the analysis of atmospheric noise and its effect on communication protocols, enabling the privacy of messages and determining the optical corrections needed to mitigate the impact of distortions.
Doctoral student Ryan Debono carried out the computational implementation of the model to be integrated within an existing communication system simulator by doctoral student Aaron Abela. The research team is currently preparing the foundations for an advanced security network connecting Malta with the rest of Europe.
As I get off the bus, I chat with some Polish tourists who have come to explore Valletta, the city of the Knights of Malta. The city’s walls and fortresses, steeped in history, are testimony to how logistics and planning allow seemingly impossible victories.
One could argue that UM’s work in QUDICE is crafting the walls that these turbulent times need, made of information rather than rock, and established in foundations as solid as the laws of physics.
Roberto Salazar has a PhD in physics and recently joined Johann Briffa’s group at the Faculty of ICT, University of Malta. His current research focuses on security proofs for quantum cryptographic protocols. The author thanks Christian Galea for his valuable comments and suggestions on the first version of the article.
This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, project QUDICE (grant agreement no. 101082596).
Sound Bites
• Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night exhibits turbulence patterns consistent with Kolmogorov’s theory. A study analysing all the whirls in the painting found that their sizes, distances and intensities align with turbulence’s physical laws. The luminance’s Fourier power spectrum reveals a Kolmogorov-like power law, suggesting that van Gogh had an extraordinary and careful observation of real fluid dynamics.
• Quantum computers have the potential to break current encryption by solving complex algorithms exponentially faster than classical computers. The ‘Harvest Now, Decrypt Later’ threat arises as adversaries collect encrypted data now to decrypt it later once powerful quantum computers become available. Initiatives like PRISM EuroQCI counter this risk by developing quantum cryptography, such as Quantum Key Distribution, ensuring long-term security.
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DID YOU KNOW?
• Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) makes eavesdropping impossible by using the laws of physics to detect any intrusion.
• Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNG) use the unpredictable behaviour of particles to create genuinely private random numbers.
• The entropy accumulation theorem proves that randomness from quantum processes remains reliable, even in the presence of an adversary.
• The United Nations proclaimed 2025 the ‘International Year of Quantum Science and Technology’.
For more trivia, see: www.um.edu.mt/think.