Abstract
Physical implementations of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, like the Bennett-Brassard (BB84), are forced to use attenuated coherent quantum states, because the sources of single photon states are not functional yet for QKD applications. However, when using attenuated coherent states, the relatively high rate of multi-photonic pulses introduces vulnerabilities that can be exploited by the photon number splitting (PNS) attack to brake the quantum key. Some QKD protocols have been developed to be resistant to the PNS attack, like the decoy method, but those define a single photonic gain in the quantum channel. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a new QKD protocol, called ack-QKD, which is resistant to the PNS attack. Even more, it uses attenuated quantum states, but defines two interleaved photonic quantum flows to detect the eavesdropper activity by means of the quantum photonic error gain (QPEG) or the quantum bit error rate (QBER). The physical implementation of the ack-QKD is similar to the well-known BB84 protocol.
Highlights
In the Bennett-Brassard (BB84) protocol [1], ideally, the quantum states that Alice sends to Bob correspond to single photons
Protocol, named ack-quantum key distribution (QKD), which is simultaneously immune to a photon number splitting (PNS) attack and changes on the gain of the quantum channel
These two main features of the ack-QKD protocol are possible if two photonic quantum flows, from parallel and non-orthogonal states, are interleaved to produce two or more quantum gains that cannot be simultaneously adjusted, by changing the gain of the quantum channel, in order to set the two quantum bit error rate (QBER) to zero
Summary
In the Bennett-Brassard (BB84) protocol [1], ideally, the quantum states that Alice sends to Bob correspond to single photons. Decoy QKD can be successfully attacked if Eve is able to adjust the gain of the quantum channel in order to set the QBER to zero. We introduce a novel QKD protocol, named ack-QKD, which is simultaneously immune to a PNS attack and changes on the gain of the quantum channel These two main features of the ack-QKD protocol are possible if two photonic quantum flows, from parallel and non-orthogonal states, are interleaved to produce two or more quantum gains that cannot be simultaneously adjusted, by changing the gain of the quantum channel, in order to set the two QBER to zero. In the ack-QKD protocol, the (2M ) outcomes are useful to distill secret bits; but, the (2nM ) are ambiguous, and those measurement results must be discarded
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