No Arabic abstract
The quantum clock synchronization (QCS) is to measure the time difference among the spatially separated clocks with the principle of quantum mechanics. The first QCS algorithm proposed by Chuang and Jozsa is merely based on two parties, which is further extended and generalized to the multiparty situation by Krco and Paul. They present a multiparty QCS protocol based upon W states that utilizes shared prior entanglement and broadcast of classical information to synchronize spatially separated clocks. Shortly afterwards, Ben-Av and Exman came up with an optimized multiparty QCS using Z state. In this work, we firstly report an implementation of Krco and Ben-AV multiparty QCS algorithm using a four-qubit Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). The experimental results show a great agreement with the theory and also prove Ben-AV multiparty QCS algorithm more accurate than Krco.
Event synchronisation is a ubiquitous task, with applications ranging from 5G technology to industrial automation and smart power grids. The emergence of quantum communication networks will further increase the demands for synchronisation in optical and electronic domains, thus incurring a significant resource overhead, e.g. through the use of ultra-stable clocks or additional synchronisation lasers. Here we show how temporal correlations of energy-time entangled photons may be harnessed for synchronisation in quantum networks. We achieve stable synchronisation jitter <50 ps with as few as 36 correlated detection events per 100 ms and demonstrate feasibility in realistic high-loss link scenarios. In contrast to previous work, this is accomplished without any external timing reference and only simple crystal oscillators. Our approach replaces the optical and electronic transmission of timing signals with classical communication and computer-aided post-processing. It can be easily integrated into a wide range of quantum communication networks and could pave the way to future applications in entanglement-based secure time transmission.
High-precision nonlocal temporal correlation identification in the entangled photon pairs is critical to measure the time offset between remote independent time scales for many quantum information applications. The first nonlocal correlation identification was reported in 2009, which extracts the time offset via the algorithm of iterative fast Fourier transformations (FFTs) and their inverse. The least identification resolution is restricted by the peak identification threshold of the algorithm, and thus the time offset calculation precision is limited. In this paper, an improvement for the identification is presented both in the resolution and precision via a modified algorithm of direct cross correlation extraction. A flexible resolution down to 1 ps is realized, which is only dependent on the Least Significant Bit (LSB) resolution of the time-tagging device. The attainable precision is shown mainly determined by the inherent timing jitter of the single photon detectors, the acquired pair rate and acquisition time, and a sub picosecond precision (0.72 ps) has been achieved at an acquisition time of 4.5 s. This high-precision nonlocal measurement realization provides a solid foundation for the field applications of entanglement-based quantum clock synchronization, ranging and communications.
Sensitive signal detection and processing in classical world, especially in quantum regime, require nonreciprocal manipulation. In this paper we show how to achieve nonreciprocal quantum synchronization for two magnon modes in a two-sublattice antiferromagnet with strong isolation.The antiferromagnet is trapped in a cavity with two posts so that the two magnon modes not only couple to each other through a parametric-type interaction, but also interact with a same cavity respectively in a beam splitter-type and parametric-type ways. Under the condition of systems stability, we show that nonreciprocal quantum synchronization between two magnon modes is mainly dependent on resonance frequency of the cavity caused by direction of input currents. In addition,quantum synchronization is enhanced by the increase of interaction strength between two Bogoliubov modes and cavity mode. Moreover, numerical simulation results with parameters commonly used in current experiments show that the present scheme may be feasible.
The two-way quantum clock synchronization has been shown not only providing femtosecond-level synchronization capability but also secure against symmetric delay attacks, thus becomes a prospective method to compare and synchronize distant clocks with both enhanced precision and security. In this letter, a field two-way quantum synchronization between a H-maser and a Rb clock linked by a 7 km-long deployed fiber is implemented. Limited by the frequency stability of the Rb clock, the achieved time stability at 30 s was measured as 32 ps. By applying a fiber-optic microwave frequency transfer technology, the dominance of the Rb clock was effectively overcome and the corresponding stability was more than one-magnitude improved to 1.95 ps, even though the acquired photon pairs was only 1440 in 30 s due to the fairly low sampling rate of the utilized coincidence measurement system. Such implementation demonstrates the high practicability of two-way quantum clock synchronization method for promoting the performance of field applications.
Digital signatures are widely used for providing security of communications. At the same time, the security of currently deployed digital signature protocols is based on unproven computational assumptions. An efficient way to ensure an unconditional (information-theoretic) security of communication is to use quantum key distribution (QKD), whose security is based on laws of quantum mechanics. In this work, we develop an unconditionally secure signatures (USS) scheme that guarantees authenticity and transferability of arbitrary length messages in a QKD network. In the proposed setup, the QKD network consists of two subnetworks: (i) the internal network that includes the signer and with limitation on the number of malicious nodes, and (ii) the external one that has no assumptions on the number of malicious nodes. A price of the absence of the trust assumption in the external subnetwork is a necessity of the assistance from internal subnetwork recipients for the verification of message-signature pairs by external subnetwork recipients. We provide a comprehensive security analysis of the developed scheme, perform an optimization of the scheme parameters with respect to the secret key consumption, and demonstrate that the developed scheme is compatible with the capabilities of currently available QKD devices.