No Arabic abstract
The intense research activity on Twin-Field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) is motivated by the fact that two users can establish a secret key by relying on single-photon interference in an untrusted node. Thanks to this feature, variants of the protocol have been proven to beat the point-to-point private capacity of a lossy quantum channel. Here we generalize the main idea of the TF-QKD protocol introduced by Curty et al. to the multipartite scenario, by devising a conference key agreement (CKA) where the users simultaneously distill a secret conference key through single-photon interference. The new CKA is better suited to high-loss scenarios than previous multipartite QKD schemes and it employs for the first time a W-class state as its entanglement resource. We prove the protocols security in the finite-key regime and under general attacks. We also compare its performance with the iterative use of bipartite QKD protocols and show that our truly multipartite scheme can be advantageous, depending on the loss and on the state preparation.
Quantum networks will provide multi-node entanglement over long distances to enable secure communication on a global scale. Traditional quantum communication protocols consume pair-wise entanglement, which is sub-optimal for distributed tasks involving more than two users. Here we demonstrate quantum conference key agreement, a quantum communication protocol that exploits multi-partite entanglement to efficiently create identical keys between N users with up to N-1 rate advantage in constrained networks. We distribute four-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states generated by high-brightness, telecom photon-pair sources across up to 50 km of fibre, implementing multi-user error correction and privacy amplification on resulting raw keys. Under finite-key analysis, we establish $1.15times10^6$ bits of secure key, which are used to encrypt and securely share an image between the four users in a conference transmission. We have demonstrated a new protocol tailored for multi-node networks leveraging low-noise, long-distance transmission of GHZ states that will pave the way forward for future multiparty quantum information processing applications.
Conference key agreement (CKA), or multipartite key distribution, is a cryptographic task where more than two parties wish to establish a common secret key. A composition of bipartite quantum key distribution protocols can accomplish this task. However, the existence of multipartite quantum correlations allows for new and potentially more efficient protocols, to be applied in future quantum networks. Here, we review the existing quantum CKA protocols based on multipartite entanglement, both in the device-dependent and the device-independent scenario.
Quantum conference key agreement (CKA) enables key sharing among multiple trusted users with information-theoretic security. Currently, the key rates of most quantum CKA protocols suffer from the limit of the total efficiency among quantum channels. Inspired by the coherent one-way and twin-field quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, we propose a quantum CKA protocol of three users. Exploiting coherent states with intensity 0 and $mu$ to encode logic bits, our protocol can break the limit. Additionally, the requirements of phase randomization and multiple intensity modulation are removed in our protocol, making its experimental demonstration simple.
We show that it is possible to generate a novel single-photon fringe pattern by using two spatially separated identical bi-photon sources. The fringes are similar to the ones observed in a Michelson interferometer and possess certain remarkable properties with potential applications. A striking feature of the fringes is that although the pattern is obtained by detecting only one photon of each photon pair, the fringes shift due to a change in the optical path traversed by the undetected photon. The fringe shift is characterized by a combination of wavelengths of both photons, which implies that the wavelength of a photon can be measured without detecting it. Furthermore, the visibility of the fringes diminishes as the correlation between the transverse momenta of twin photons decreases: visibility is unity for maximum momentum correlation and zero for no momentum correlation. We also show that the momentum correlation between the two photons of a pair can be determined from the single-photon interference pattern. We thus for the first time propose a method of measuring a two-photon correlation without coincidence or heralded detection.
Utilizing the advantage of quantum entanglement swapping, a multi-party quantum key agreement protocol with authentication is proposed. In this protocol, a semi-trusted third party is introduced, who prepares Bell states, and sends one particle to multiple participants respectively. After that the participants can share a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state by entanglement swapping. Finally, these participants measure the particles in their hands and obtain an agreement key. Here, classical hash function and Hadamard operation are utilized to authenticate the identity of participants. The correlations of GHZ states ensure the security of the proposed protocol. To illustrated it detailly, the security of this protocol against common attacks is analyzed, which shows that the proposed protocol is secure in theory.