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arXiv:1305.6480 · Physical Review A

Efficient implementation of the decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution with heralded single-photon sources

Qin Wang, Xiang‐Bin Wang

Published Nov 26, 2013• 69 citations
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Abstract

We study decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution using heralded single-photon sources. This has the advantage that the observed error rate in the $X$ basis is at higher order and not so large. We calculate the key rate and transmission distance for two cases: one using only triggered events, and the other using both triggered and nontriggered events. We compare the key rates of various protocols and find that our scheme using triggered and nontriggered events can give a higher key rate and a longer secure distance. Moreover, we also show the different behavior of our scheme when using different heralded single-photon sources, i.e., in Poisson or thermal distributions. We demonstrate that the former can generate a higher secure key rate than the latter and can thus work more efficiently in practical quantum key distributions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.88.052332

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We study decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution using heralded single-photon sources. This has the advantage that the observed error rate in the XXX basis is at higher order and not so large. We calculate the key rate and transmission distance for two cases: one using only triggered events, and the other using both triggered and nontriggered events. We compare the key rates of various protocols and find that our scheme using triggered and nontriggered events can give a higher key rate and a longer secure distance. Moreover, we also show the different behavior of our scheme when using different heralded single-photon sources, i.e., in Poisson or thermal distributions. We demonstrate that the former can generate a higher secure key rate than the latter and can thus work more efficiently in practical quantum key distributions.
Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) has been widely investigated due to its remarkable advantages on the achievable transmission distance and practical security. However, the relative low key generation rate limits its real-life implementations. In this work, we adopt the newly proposed four-intensity decoy-state scheme [Phys. Rev. A 93, 042324 (2016)] to study the performance of MDI-QKD with heralded single-photon sources (HSPS). Corresponding simulation results demonstrate that the four-intensity decoy-state scheme combining HSPS can drastically improve both the key generation rate and transmission distance in MDI-QKD, which may be very promising in future MDI-QKD systems.
At present, most of the measurement-device-independent quantum key distributions (MDI-QKD) are based on weak coherent sources and limited in the transmission distance under realistic experimental conditions, e.g., considering the finite-size-key effects. Hence in this paper, we propose a new biased decoy-state scheme using heralded single-photon sources for the three-intensity MDI-QKD, where we prepare the decoy pulses only in X basis and adopt both the collective constraints and joint parameter estimation techniques. Compared with former schemes with WCS or HSPS, after implementing full parameter optimizations, our scheme gives distinct reduced quantum bit error rate in the X basis and thus show excellent performance, especially when the data size is relatively small.
Recently the performance of the quantum key distribution (QKD) is substantially improved by the decoy state method and the non-orthogonal encoding protocol, separately. In this paper, a practical non-orthogonal decoy state protocol with a heralded single photon source (HSPS) for QKD is presented. The protocol is based on 4 states with different intensities, i.e. one signal state and three decoy states. The signal state is for generating keys; the decoy states are for detecting the eavesdropping and estimating the fraction of single-photon and two-photon pulses. We have discussed three cases of this protocol, i.e. the general case, the optimal case and the special case. Moreover, the final key rate over transmission distance is simulated. For the low dark count of the HSPS and the utilization of the two-photon pulses, our protocol has a higher key rate and a longer transmission distance than any other decoy state protocol.
For the Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) quantum key distribution, longer distance and higher key generation rate is shown with a heralded single photon source (HSPS). In this paper, the nonorthogonal encoding protocol SARG04 based on one vacuum and two weak decoy states with HSPS is presented. According to the public announcement of Alice's detection events, the overall gain of Bob's detector and quantum bit error rate (QBER) can be divided into two groups, triggered components and nontriggered components. We present a new protocol that use both triggered and nontriggered components to estimate the fraction and QBER of single-photon and two-photon pulses, and then deduce the final secure key generation rate. The final key generation rate over transmission distance is simulated, which shows that we can obtain a higher key rate than that of the existing methods.
Encoding system plays a significant role in quantum key distribution (QKD). However, the security and performance of QKD systems can be compromised by encoding misalignment due to the inevitable defects in realistic devices. To alleviate the influence of misalignments, a method exploiting statistics from mismatched basis is proposed to enable uncharacterized sources to generate secure keys in QKD. In this work, we propose a scheme on four-intensity decoy-state quantum key distribution with uncharacterized heralded single-photon sources. It only requires the source states are prepared in a two-dimensional Hilbert space, and can thus reduce the complexity of practical realizations. Moreover, we carry out corresponding numerical simulations and demonstrate that our present four-intensity decoy-state scheme can achieve a much higher key rate compared than a three-intensity decoy-state method, and meantime it can obtain a longer transmission distance compared than the one using weak coherent sources.
We present an efficient decoy-state protocol measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution without vacuum source, with the heralded single-photon source (HSPS) and global optimization. This protocol is able to give a high key rate and avoid the security problem caused by the vacuum source or extremely weak source. In the protocol, the heralded outcome pulse pairs in XXX basis are used as decoy pairs and all outcome pairs in ZZZ basis are used as signal pairs. Each side uses three different intensities for the outcome pulses, two in XXX basis and one in ZZZ basis. In order to efficiently optimize the key rate globally, we present an efficient method to estimate what values we will observe by using the HSPS. This efficient method greatly reduces the computation complexity from the fourfold summation to a single-fold summation in the numerical simulation and makes it operable to seek the optimization points globally.