Secure sequential transmission of quantum information

Kabgyun Jeong,Jaewan Kim

doi:10.1007/s11128-015-1054-5

Kabgyun Jeong, Jaewan Kim

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-015-1054-5

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Abstract

We propose a quantum communication protocol that can be used to transmit any quantum state, one party to another via several intermediate nodes, securely on quantum communication network. The scheme makes use of the sequentially chained and approximate version of private quantum channels satisfying certain commutation relation of n-qubit Pauli operations. In this paper, we study the sequential structure, security analysis, and efficiency of the quantum sequential transmission protocol in depth.

Highlights

One of the most popular quantum cryptographic primitives, except quantum key distribution, is the quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols [1,2]
The primitive known as QSS is a process of splitting a piece of quantum information into several parts and securely reconstructing the information, but certain subparts are not enough to restore the original quantum information. (In a strict sense, the secret sharing is different from the state sharing on its goal [3], but we treat the protocols as in the same category.) There are huge number of theoretical studies on QSS protocols, and exist experimental demonstrations on QSS schemes in continuous-variable regime, e.g., Refs. [4,5]
The security argument only depends on the small security parameter ε in which an approximate private quantum channel guarantee its security

Summary

Introduction

One of the most popular quantum cryptographic primitives, except quantum key distribution, is the quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols [1,2]. We here review the original QSS scheme from the point of view of (approximate) private quantum channels (PQC) and propose an information transmission method, namely ε-secure quantum sequential transmission (QST) protocol. This protocol uses a concept of private quantum channel and aims to secure sequential transmission, where arbitrary quantum states pass through several authorized intermediate nodes (or participants). Using the idea of the general three-party QSS scheme, we construct our main protocol known as QST protocol under the security parameter ε. With the proposed schemes, we study the key question of finding minimal resources required to split and reconstruct a quantum state, and to transfer arbitrary quantum information sequentially.

Background

Quantum sequential transmission scheme

Conclusion