Practical Decoy State Research Articles

A Review of Security Evaluation of Practical Quantum Key Distribution System.

Although the unconditional security of quantum key distribution (QKD) has been widely studied, the imperfections of the practical devices leave potential loopholes for Eve to spy the final key. Thus, how to evaluate the security of QKD with realistic devices is always an interesting and opening question. In this paper, we briefly review the development of quantum hacking and security evaluation technology for a practical decoy state BB84 QKD system. The security requirement and parameters in each module (source, encoder, decoder and detector) are discussed, and the relationship between quantum hacking and security parameter are also shown.

Practical decoy state quantum key distribution with detector efficiency mismatch

Decoy state method is widely used in practical quantum key distribution (QKD) systems to substantially extend the secure communication distance. Detector efficiency mismatch (DEM), which exists between practical detectors, effects the security of practical QKD systems seriously. Security of single photon QKD with DEM has been analyzed. However, estimate of the phase error rate still remains difficult in practice. Here, using a simple equivalent detection model, the mutual information between legitimate users and the eavesdropper for single photon state in QKD with DEM is analyzed. Then we improve the security analysis to cover the situation of weak coherent QKD with DEM. A general theory of the decoy state QKD with DEM is proposed to calculate the lower bound of count rate and the upper bound of error rate of single photon state signals. The numerical simulations show that secure key can also be generated, but the existing of DEM will reduce the secure key of practical decoy state QKD systems. The experiment parameter related security bound of DEM is also given out.

Getting something out of nothing in the measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution

Because of the monogamy of entanglement, the measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution is immune to the side-information leaking of the measurement devices. When the correlated measurement outcomes are generated from the dark counts, no entanglement is actually obtained. However, secure key bits can still be proven to be generated from these measurement outcomes. Especially, we will give numerical studies on the contributions of dark counts to the key generation rate in practical decoy state MDI-QKD where a signal source, a weaker decoy source and a vacuum decoy source are used by either legitimate key distributer.

Decoy states and two way quantum key distribution schemes

We study the possible application of the decoy state method on a basic two way quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme to extend its distance. Noting the obvious advantage of such a QKD scheme in allowing for single as well as double photon contributions, we derive relevant lower bounds on the corresponding gains in a practical decoy state implementation using two intensities for decoy states. We work with two different approaches in this vein and compare these with an ideal infinite decoy state case as well as the simulation of the original.

Fiber and free-space practical decoy state QKD for both BB84 and SARG04 protocols

Fiber and free-space practical decoy state quantum key distribution has been simulated for both BB84 and SARG04 protocols. The numerical simulation has shown that the fiber based QKD and free space QKD systems using the proposed method for BB84 are able to achieve both a higher secret key rate and greater secure distance than that of SARG04.

Practical decoy state quantum key distribution with finite resource

In this paper, we consider the controllably secure quantum key distribution (QKD) with coherent source, i.e., the practical decoy state QKD with finite resource is studied within the scope of some controllable security parameters. Our simulation shows the controllably secure QKD is more resource-consuming compared with the practical decoy QKD with relatively statistical fluctuation. However, further numerically solutions show that both protocols agree well with each other in the asymptotic limit, where the resource is large enough but not infinite. Our work shows the dark counts will contribute apparently to the transmission distance when communication distance approaches to the asymptotic limit. It also shows that both the secure transmission distance and the rate of the secure final key can be increased apparently when the security estimation parameters are not fixed but numerically optimized.

A universal coherent source for quantum key distribution

We propose a concept of universal coherent source for quantum key distribution. The weak coherent pulse (WCP) and heralded single photon source (HSPS) are the most common photon sources for state-of-art quantum key distribution (QKD). However, there exists a prominent crossover between the maximal secure distance and the secure key generating rate in short and middle distance if one applies these two sources in a practical decoy state quantum key distribution. It is shown that by combining the heralded pair coherent state (HPCS) photon source and the practical decoy state method together, one can not only strengthen the maximal secure transmission distance, but also improve key generating rate at short and medium distance. Moreover, the advancement in key generating is not confined in the particular protocol utilized and can be easily checked for both BB84 and SARG protocol. Finally, we clearly demonstrate how the HPCS-based decoy method works effectively and feasibly by proposing an efficient HPCS-based “1 signal+2 decoy” state method.

Quantum key distribution with triggering parametric down-conversion sources

Parametric down-conversion (PDC) sources can be used as triggered single photon sources in quantum key distribution (QKD). Recently, there have been several practical proposals of the decoy state QKD with triggering PDC sources. In this paper, we generalize the passive decoy state idea, originally proposed by Mauerer and Silberhorn. The generalized passive decoy state idea can be applied to cases where either threshold detectors or photon-number-resolving detectors are used. The decoy state protocol proposed by Adachi, Yamamoto, Koashi and Imoto (AYKI) can be treated as a special case of the generalized passive decoy state method. By simulating a recent PDC experiment, we compare various practical decoy state protocols with the infinite decoy state protocol and also compare the cases using threshold detectors and photon-number-resolving detectors. Our simulation result shows that with the AYKI protocol, one can achieve a key generation rate that is close to the theoretical limit of an infinite decoy state protocol. Furthermore, our simulation result shows that a photon-number-resolving detector appears to be not very useful for improving QKD performance in this case. Although our analysis is focused on QKD with PDC sources, we emphasize that it can also be applied to QKD setups with other triggered single photon sources.

DECOY STATE QUANTUM KEY DISTRIBUTION

Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two parties to communicate in absolute security based on the fundamental laws of physics. Up till now, it is widely believed that unconditionally secure QKD based on standard Bennett-Brassard (BB84) protocol is limited in both key generation rate and distance because of imperfect devices. Here, we solve these two problems directly by presenting new protocols that are feasible with only current technology. Surprisingly, our new protocols can make fiber-based QKD unconditionally secure at distances over 100km (for some experiments, such as GYS) and increase the key generation rate from O(η2) in prior art to O(η) where η is the overall transmittance. Our method is to develop the decoy state idea (first proposed by W.-Y. Hwang in "Quantum Key Distribution with High Loss: Toward Global Secure Communication", Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 057901 (2003)) and consider simple extensions of the BB84 protocol. This part of work is published in "Decoy State Quantum Key Distribution", . We present a general theory of the decoy state protocol and propose a decoy method based on only one signal state and two decoy states. We perform optimization on the choice of intensities of the signal state and the two decoy states. Our result shows that a decoy state protocol with only two types of decoy states—a vacuum and a weak decoy state—asymptotically approaches the theoretical limit of the most general type of decoy state protocols (with an infinite number of decoy states). We also present a one-decoy-state protocol as a special case of Vacuum+Weak decoy method. Moreover, we provide estimations on the effects of statistical fluctuations and suggest that, even for long distance (larger than 100km) QKD, our two-decoy-state protocol can be implemented with only a few hours of experimental data. In conclusion, decoy state quantum key distribution is highly practical. This part of work is published in "Practical Decoy State for Quantum Key Distribution", . We also have done the first experimental demonstration of decoy state quantum key distribution, over 15km of Telecom fibers. This part of work is published in "Experimental Decoy State Quantum Key Distribution Over 15km", .

Practical decoy state for quantum key distribution

Decoy states have recently been proposed as a useful method for substantially improving the performance of quantum key distribution. Here, we present a general theory of the decoy state protocol based on only two decoy states and one signal state. We perform optimization on the choice of intensities of the two decoy states and the signal state. Our result shows that a decoy state protocol with only two types of decoy states--the vacuum and a weak decoy state--asymptotically approaches the theoretical limit of the most general type of decoy state protocols (with an infinite number of decoy states). We also present a one-decoy-state protocol. Moreover, we provide estimations on the effects of statistical fluctuations and suggest that, even for long distance (larger than 100km) QKD, our two-decoy-state protocol can be implemented with only a few hours of experimental data. In conclusion, decoy state quantum key distribution is highly practical.