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arXiv:0903.3150

Secure Communication using Gaussian-State Quantum Illumination

Jeffrey H. Shapiro

Published Mar 18, 2009• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A new paradigm for secure communication, based on quantum illumination, is proposed. Alice uses spontaneous parametric down-conversion to send Bob a set of signal modes over a pure-loss channel while retaining the set of idler modes with which they are maximally entangled. Bob imposes a single information bit on the modes he receives from Alice via binary phase-shift keying. He then adds classical Gaussian noise and sends the noisy modulated modes back to Alice over the same pure-loss channel. Even though the loss and noise destroy any entanglement between the modes that Alice receives from Bob and the idler modes she has retained, she can decode Bob's bit with an error probability that can be orders of magnitude lower than what is achieved by a passive eavesdropper who receives all the photons that are lost en route from Alice to Bob and from Bob to Alice.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.0903.3150

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A new paradigm for secure communication, based on quantum illumination, is proposed. Alice uses spontaneous parametric down-conversion to send Bob a set of signal modes over a pure-loss channel while retaining the set of idler modes with which they are maximally entangled. Bob imposes a single information bit on the modes he receives from Alice via binary phase-shift keying. He then adds classical Gaussian noise and sends the noisy modulated modes back to Alice over the same pure-loss channel. Even though the loss and noise destroy any entanglement between the modes that Alice receives from Bob and the idler modes she has retained, she can decode Bob's bit with an error probability that can be orders of magnitude lower than what is achieved by a passive eavesdropper who receives all the photons that are lost en route from Alice to Bob and from Bob to Alice.
A two-way protocol for defeating passive eavesdropping is proposed. For each information bit, Alice sends Bob TTT sec of signal-beam output from a spontaneous parametric down-converter over a pure-loss channel while retaining the idler beam with which it is maximally entangled. Bob imposes a single information bit on the light he receives from Alice via binary phase-shift keying. He then amplifies the modulated beam and sends the resulting light back to Alice over the same pure-loss channel. Even though the loss and amplifier noise destroy any entanglement between the light that Alice receives from Bob and the idler she has retained, she can decode Bob's bit with an error probability that can be orders of magnitude lower than what is achieved by a passive eavesdropper who receives all the photons that are lost en route from Alice to Bob and from Bob to Alice. In particular, Alice and Bob can communicate at 50 Mbit/s over 50 km of low-loss fiber with an error probability of less than ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}$ while the passive eavesdropper's error probability must exceed 0.28.
Quantum illumination is a paradigm for using entanglement to gain a performance advantage-in comparison with classical-state systems of the same optical power-over lossy, noisy channels that destroy entanglement. Previous work has shown how it can be used to defeat passive eavesdropping on a two-way Alice-to-Bob-to-Alice communication protocol, in which the eavesdropper, Eve, merely listens to Alice and Bob's transmissions. This thesis extends that work in several ways. First, it derives a lower bound on information advantage that Alice enjoys over Eve in the passive eavesdropping scenario. Next, it explores the performance of alternative practical receivers for Alice, as well as various high-order modulation formats for the passive eavesdropping case. Finally, this thesis extends previous analysis to consider how Alice and Bob can minimize their vulnerability to Eve's doing active eavesdropping, i.e., when she injects her own light into the channel.
Quantum illumination is a paradigm for using entanglement to gain a performance advantage—in comparison with classical‐state systems of the same optical power—over lossy, noisy channels that destroy entanglement. Previous work has shown how it can be used to defeat passive eavesdropping on a two‐way Alice‐to‐Bob‐to‐Alice communication protocol, in which the eavesdropper, Eve, merely listens to Alice and Bob’s transmissions. This paper extends that analysis to consider how Alice and Bob can minimize their vulnerability to Eve’s doing active eavesdropping, i.e., when she injects her own light into the channel.
Abstract: We report the first experimental demonstration of an entanglement-based secure communication protocol that is resilient to entanglement-breaking loss and noise on the communication channel. Passive eavesdropping immunity is demonstrated in bit-error rate measurements and Alice’s information advantage over Eve is estimated. Entanglement is a key ingredient to many quantum information applications, but quantum decoherence arising from loss and noise easily destroys entanglement. Quantum illumination (QI) [1]–[3] is a novel concept of utilizing entanglement in an entanglement-breaking lossy and noisy environment to achieve a substantial performance benefit. First proposed for enhancing the signalto-noise ratio for detecting a weakly-reflecting target in the presence of strong background noise [1], quantum illumination was later shown, theoretically, to enable high data-rate classical communication that is immune to passive eavesdropping [3]. In this work we report the first experimental demonstration of the QI communication protocol [4], showing a strong performance benefit of using bosonic entanglement over an entanglement-breaking channel and QI’s passive-eavesdropping immunity. Quantum illumination achieves a substantial benefit from its initial entanglement, despite the roundtrip lossy, noisy propagation channel’s having left the retained and returned light
An optical transmitter irradiates a target region containing a bright thermal-noise bath in which a low-reflectivity object might be embedded. The light received from this region is used to decide whether the object is present or absent. The performance achieved using a coherent-state transmitter is compared with that of a quantum-illumination transmitter, i.e., one that employs the signal beam obtained from spontaneous parametric down-conversion. By making the optimum joint measurement on the light received from the target region together with the retained spontaneous parametric down-conversion idler beam, the quantum-illumination system realizes a 6 dB advantage in the error-probability exponent over the optimum reception coherent-state system. This advantage accrues despite there being no entanglement between the light collected from the target region and the retained idler beam.
In this paper, we propose a novel quantum backscatter communications (QBC) protocol, inspired by the quantum illumination (QI) concept. In the QBC paradigm, the transmitter generates entangled photon pairs. The signal photon is transmitted and the idler photon is kept at the receiver. The tag antenna communicates by performing the pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), binary phase shift keying (BPSK) or quadratic phase shift keying (QPSK) on the signal impinging at the antenna. Using the sum-frequency-generation receiver, our QBC protocol achieves a 6 dB error exponent gain for PAM and BPSK, and 3 dB gain for QPSK over its classical counterpart. Finally, we discuss the QI-enhanced secure backscatter communication.