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arXiv:1207.5544 · Physical Review Letters

Security of Distributed-Phase-Reference Quantum Key Distribution

Tobias Moroder, Marcos Curty, Charles Ci Wen Lim, Lê Phuc Thinh, Hugo Zbinden, Nicolas Gisin

Published Dec 26, 2012• 63 citations
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Abstract

Distributed-phase-reference quantum key distribution stands out for its easy implementation with present day technology. For many years, a full security proof of these schemes in a realistic setting has been elusive. We solve this long-standing problem and present a generic method to prove the security of such protocols against general attacks. To illustrate our result, we provide lower bounds on the key generation rate of a variant of the coherent-one-way quantum key distribution protocol. In contrast to standard predictions, it appears to scale quadratically with the system transmittance.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.109.260501

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Distributed-phase-reference quantum key distribution stands out for its easy implementation with present day technology. For many years, a full security proof of these schemes in a realistic setting has been elusive. We solve this long-standing problem and present a generic method to prove the security of such protocols against general attacks. To illustrate our result, we provide lower bounds on the key generation rate of a variant of the coherent-one-way quantum key distribution protocol. In contrast to standard predictions, it appears to scale quadratically with the system transmittance.
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In theory, quantum key distribution (QKD) offers information-theoretic security. In practice, however, it does not due to the discrepancies between the assumptions used in the security proofs and the behavior of the real apparatuses. Recent years have witnessed a tremendous effort to fill the gap, but the treatment of correlations among pulses has remained a major elusive problem. Here, we close this gap by introducing a simple yet general method to prove the security of QKD with arbitrarily long-range pulse correlations. Our method is compatible with those security proofs that accommodate all the other typical device imperfections, thus paving the way toward achieving implementation security in QKD with arbitrary flawed devices. Moreover, we introduce a new framework for security proofs, which we call the reference technique. This framework includes existing security proofs as special cases, and it can be widely applied to a number of QKD protocols.
Abstract Quantum technology can enable secure communication for cryptography purposes using quantum key distribution. Quantum key distribution protocol establishes a secret key between two users with security guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanics. To define the proper implementation of a quantum key distribution system using a particular cryptography protocol, it is crucial to critically and meticulously assess the device’s performance due to technological limitations in the components used. We perform simulations on the ANSYS Interconnect platform to study the practical implementation of these devices using distributed-phase-reference protocols: differential-phase-shift and coherent-one-way quantum key distribution. Further, we briefly describe and simulate some possible eavesdropping attempts, backflash attack, trojan-horse attack and detector-blinding attack exploiting the device imperfections. The ideal simulations of these hacking attempts show how partial or complete secret key can be exposed to an eavesdropper, which can be mitigated by the implementation of discussed countermeasures.
The recently proposed phase-matching quantum key distribution offers means to overcome the linear key rate--transmittance bound. Since the key information is encoded onto the phases of coherent states, the misalignment between the two remote reference frames would yield errors and significantly degrade the key generation rate from the ideal case. In this work, we propose a reference-frame-independent design of phase-matching quantum key distribution by introducing a high-dimensional key encoding space. With encoded phases spanning the unit circle, the error statistics at arbitrary fixed-phase-reference difference can be recovered and treated separately, from which the misalignment angle can be identified. By naturally extending the binary encoding symmetry and complementarity to high dimensions, we present a security proof of this high-dimensional phase-matching quantum key distribution and demonstrate with simulation that a 17-dimensional protocol is completely immune to any degree of fixed misalignment and robust to slow phase fluctuations. We expect the high-dimensional protocol to be a practical reference-frame-independent design for general phase-encoding schemes where high-dimensional encoding is relatively easy to implement.
The recently proposed phase-matching quantum key distribution offers means to overcome the linear key rate–transmittance bound. Since the key information is encoded onto the phases of coherent states, the misalignment between the two remote reference frames would yield errors and significantly degrade the key generation rate from the ideal case. In this work, we propose a reference-frame-independent design of phase-matching quantum key distribution by introducing a high-dimensional key encoding space. With encoded phases spanning the unit circle, the error statistics at arbitrary fixed-phase-reference difference can be recovered and treated separately, from which the misalignment angle can be identified. By naturally extending the binary encoding symmetry and complementarity to high dimensions, we present a security proof of this high-dimensional phase-matching quantum key distribution and demonstrate with simulation that a 17-dimensional protocol is completely immune to any degree of fixed misalignment and robust to slow phase fluctuations. We expect the high-dimensional protocol to be a practical reference-frame independent design for general phase-encoding schemes where high-dimensional encoding is relatively easy to implement