Squeezed-state quantum key distribution upon imperfect reconciliation

Abstract

We address the security of continuous-variable quantum key distribution with squeezed states upon the realistic conditions of noisy and lossy environment and limited reconciliation efficiency. Considering the generalized preparation scheme and clearly distinguishing between classical and quantum resources, we investigate the effect of finite squeezing on the tolerance of the protocol to untrusted channel noise. For a long-distance strongly attenuating channel and the consequent low reconciliation efficiency, we show that feasible limited squeezing is surprisingly sufficient to provide the security of Gaussian quantum key distribution in the presence of untrusted noise. We explain the effect by the behaviour of the Holevo quantity, which describes the information leakage and is effectively minimized by the squeezed states.