We study the decoherence of polarization-entangled photon pairs subject to the effects of polarization mode dispersion, the chief polarization decoherence mechanism in optical fibers. We show that fiber propagation reveals an intriguing interplay between the concepts of entanglement sudden death, decoherence-free subspaces, and nonlocality. We define the boundaries in which entanglement-based quantum communications protocols relying on fiber propagation can be applied.

• Received 18 August 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.080404