  The ability of an eavesdropper (Eve) to perform an intercept-resend attack on
a free-space quantum key distribution (QKD) receiver by precisely controlling
the incidence angle of an attack laser has been previously demonstrated.
However, such an attack could be ineffective in the presence of atmospheric
turbulence due to beam wander and spatial mode aberrations induced by the air's
varying index of refraction. We experimentally investigate the impact
turbulence has on Eve's attack on a free-space polarization-encoding QKD
receiver by emulating atmospheric turbulence with a spatial light modulator.
Our results identify how well Eve would need to compensate for turbulence to
perform a successful attack by either reducing her distance to the receiver, or
using beam wavefront correction via adaptive optics. Furthermore, we use an
entanglement-breaking scheme to find a theoretical limit on the turbulence
strength that hinders Eve's attack.
