No Arabic abstract
The security of quantum key distribution has traditionally been analyzed in either the asymptotic or non-asymptotic regimes. In this paper, we provide a bridge between these two regimes, by determining second-order coding rates for key distillation in quantum key distribution under collective attacks. Our main result is a formula that characterizes the backoff from the known asymptotic formula for key distillation -- our formula incorporates the reliability and security of the protocol, as well as the mutual information variances to the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. In order to determine secure key rates against collective attacks, one should perform a joint optimization of the Holevo information and the Holevo information variance to the eavesdropper. We show how to do so by analyzing several examples, including the six-state, BB84, and continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocols (the last involving Gaussian modulation of coherent states along with heterodyne detection). The technical contributions of this paper include one-shot and second-order analyses of private communication over a compound quantum wiretap channel with fixed marginal and key distillation over a compound quantum wiretap source with fixed marginal. We also establish the second-order asymptotics of the smooth max-relative entropy of quantum states acting on a separable Hilbert space, and we derive a formula for the Holevo information variance of a Gaussian ensemble of Gaussian states.
Device-independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD) provides the strongest form of secure key exchange, using only the input-output statistics of the devices to achieve information-theoretic security. Although the basic security principles of DIQKD are now well-understood, it remains a technical challenge to derive reliable and robust security bounds for advanced DIQKD protocols that go beyond the existing results based on violations of the CHSH inequality. In this Letter, we present a framework based on semi-definite programming that gives reliable lower bounds on the asymptotic secret key rate of any QKD protocol using untrusted devices. In particular, our method can in principle be utilized to find achievable secret key rates for any DIQKD protocol, based on the full input-output probability distribution or any choice of Bell inequality. Our method also extends to other DI cryptographic tasks.
We derive a sufficient condition for advantage distillation to be secure against collective attacks in device-independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD), focusing on the repetition-code protocol. In addition, we describe a semidefinite programming method to check whether this condition holds for any probability distribution obtained in a DIQKD protocol. Applying our method to various probability distributions, we find that advantage distillation is possible up to depolarising-noise values of $q approx 9.1%$ or limited detector efficiencies of $eta approx 89.1%$ in a 2-input 2-output scenario. This exceeds the noise thresholds of $q approx 7.1%$ and $eta approx 90.7%$ respectively for DIQKD with one-way error correction using the CHSH inequality, thereby showing that it is possible to distill secret key beyond those thresholds.
In this paper, we introduce intrinsic non-locality as a quantifier for Bell non-locality, and we prove that it satisfies certain desirable properties such as faithfulness, convexity, and monotonicity under local operations and shared randomness. We then prove that intrinsic non-locality is an upper bound on the secret-key-agreement capacity of any device-independent protocol conducted using a device characterized by a correlation $p$. We also prove that intrinsic steerability is an upper bound on the secret-key-agreement capacity of any semi-device-independent protocol conducted using a device characterized by an assemblage $hat{rho}$. We also establish the faithfulness of intrinsic steerability and intrinsic non-locality. Finally, we prove that intrinsic non-locality is bounded from above by intrinsic steerability.
A quantum key distribution protocol based on time coding uses delayed one photon pulses with minimum time-frequency uncertainty product. Possible overlap between the pulses induces an ambiguous delay measurement and ensures a secure key exchange.
Coherent one photon pulses are sent with four possible time delays with respect to a reference. Ambiguity of the photon time detection resulting from pulses overlap combined with interferometric measurement allows for secure key exchange.