No Arabic abstract
Among many quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, the round-robin differential phase shift (RRDPS) protocol is unique in that it can upper-bound the amount of the information leakage without monitoring the signal disturbance. To expedite implementation of the protocol, however, the number of pulses forming a single block should be kept small, which significantly decreases the key rates in the original security proof. In the present paper, we refine the security proof of the RRDPS protocol in the finite-sized regime and achieve a tighter estimation for the information leakage without changing the original experimental setups. As a consequence, we obtain better key rates in both asymptotic and finite-sized cases while keeping the preferable features of the protocol, such as omission of phase randomization.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers the possibility for two individuals to communicate a securely encrypted message. From the time of its inception in 1984 by Bennett and Brassard, QKD has been the result of intense research. One technical challenge is the monitoring of signal disturbance in a QKD system to bound the information leakage towards an unwanted eavesdropper. Recently, the round-robin differential phase-shift (RRDPS) protocol, which encodes bits of information in a high-dimensional state space, was proposed to solve this exact problem. Since its introduction, many realizations of the RRDPS protocol were demonstrated using trains of coherent pulses. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an implementation of the RRDPS protocol using the photonic orbital angular momentum degree of freedom. In particular, we show that Alices generation stage and Bobs detection stage can each be reduced to a single phase element, greatly simplifying its implementation. Our scheme offers a practical demonstration of the RRDPS protocol which will suppress the need for monitoring signal disturbance in free-space channels.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows the establishment of common cryptographic keys among distant parties. Many of the QKD protocols that were introduced in the past involve the challenge of monitoring the signal disturbance over the communication line, in order to evaluate the information leakage to a potential eavesdropper. Recently, a QKD protocol that circumvents the need for monitoring signal disturbance, has been proposed and demonstrated in initial experiments. Here, we propose a new version of this so-called round-robin differential phase-shifting (RRDPS) protocol, in which both time and phase degrees-of-freedom are utilized to enlarge the Hilbert space dimensionality, without increasing experimental complexity or relaxing security assumptions. We derive the security proofs of the round-robin differential phase-time-shifting (RRDPTS) protocol in the collective attack scenario and benchmark the new protocol against RRDPS for different experimental parameters. Furthermore, a proof-of-concept experiment of the RRDPTS protocol, using weak coherent pulses and decoy-state method, is demonstrated over 80 km of fiber link. Our results show that the RRDPTS protocol can achieve higher secret key rate in comparison with the RRDPS, in the condition of high quantum bit error rate.
We prove the security of theoretical quantum key distribution against the most general attacks which can be performed on the channel, by an eavesdropper who has unlimited computation abilities, and the full power allowed by the rules of classical and quantum physics. A key created that way can then be used to transmit secure messages such that their security is also unaffected in the future.
We prove the security of the 1984 protocol of Bennett and Brassard (BB84) for quantum key distribution. We first give a key distribution protocol based on entanglement purification, which can be proven secure using methods from Lo and Chaus proof of security for a similar protocol. We then show that the security of this protocol implies the security of BB84. The entanglement-purification based protocol uses Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) codes, and properties of these codes are used to remove the use of quantum computation from the Lo-Chau protocol.
The work by Christandl, Konig and Renner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 020504 (2009)] provides in particular the possibility of studying unconditional security in the finite-key regime for all discrete-variable protocols. We spell out this bound from their general formalism. Then we apply it to the study of a recently proposed protocol [Laing et al., Phys. Rev. A 82, 012304 (2010)]. This protocol is meaningful when the alignment of Alices and Bobs reference frames is not monitored and may vary with time. In this scenario, the notion of asymptotic key rate has hardly any operational meaning, because if one waits too long time, the average correlations are smeared out and no security can be inferred. Therefore, finite-key analysis is necessary to find the maximal achievable secret key rate and the corresponding optimal number of signals.