Loss-tolerant quantum cryptography with imperfect sources

2013/12/19 by Kiyoshi Tamaki, Marcos Curty, Go Kato +3 · 3 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Algorithm #Computer science #Computer security #Cryptography #Exploit #Imperfect #Key (lock) #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum cryptography #Quantum information #Quantum key distribution #Quantum mechanics #State (computer science) #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.90.052314

published as Phys. Rev. A 90, 052314 (2014) · 9 pages, 2 figures

arxiv created 2013/12/19 · openalex publication_date 2014/11/12 · arxiv updated 2015/06/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

In principle, quantum key distribution (QKD) offers unconditional security based on the laws of physics. Unfortunately, all previous QKD experiments assume perfect state preparation in their security analysis. Therefore, the generated key is not proven to be secure in the presence of unavoidable modulation errors. The key reason that modulation errors are not considered in previous QKD experiments lies in a crucial weakness of the standard Gottesman-Lo-L"utkenhaus-Preskill (GLLP) model, namely, it is not loss tolerant and Eve may in principle enhance imperfections through losses. Here, we propose a QKD protocol that is loss tolerant to state preparation flaws. Importantly, we show conclusively that the state preparation process in QKD can be much less precise than initially thought. Our method can also be applied to other quantum cryptographic protocols.

Citations

• Beating the Photon-Number-Splitting Attack in Practical Quantum Cryptography
• Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution with uncharacterized qubit sources
• Unconditional Security of Quantum Key Distribution over Arbitrarily Long Distances
• Decoy State Quantum Key Distribution
• A de Finetti representation for finite symmetric quantum states
• Quantum Key Distribution with High Loss: Toward Global Secure Communication
• Uncertainty Relation for Smooth Entropies
• Key Rate Available from Mismatched Measurements in the BB84 Protocol and the Uncertainty Principle
• Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution for Scarani-Acin-Ribordy-Gisin 04 protocol
• Tight finite-key analysis for quantum cryptography
• Quantum cryptography based on the energy-time uncertainty relation

Cited by

• Ternary Quantum Eraser Cryptography
• More Efficient Privacy Amplification With Less Random Seeds via Dual Universal Hash Function
• Secure quantum key distribution with realistic devices
• Higher key rate of measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution through joint data processing