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arXiv:1708.00798 · Physical Review A

Fully device-independent conference key agreement

Jérémy Ribeiro, Gláucia Murta, Stephanie Wehner

Published Feb 6, 2018• 102 citations
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Abstract

We present a security analysis of conference key agreement (CKA) in the most adversarial model of device independence (DI). Our protocol can be implemented by any experimental setup that is capable of performing Bell tests [specifically, the Mermin-Ardehali-Belinskii-Klyshko (MABK) inequality], and security can in principle be obtained for any violation of the MABK inequality that detects genuine multipartite entanglement among the $N$ parties involved in the protocol. As our main tool, we derive a direct physical connection between the $N$-partite MABK inequality and the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality, showing that certain violations of the MABK inequality correspond to a violation of the CHSH inequality between one of the parties and the other $N\ensuremath{-}1$. We compare the asymptotic key rate for device-independent conference key agreement (DICKA) to the case where the parties use $N\ensuremath{-}1$ device-independent quantum key distribution protocols in order to generate a common key. We show that for some regime of noise the DICKA protocol leads to better rates.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.97.022307

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quant-pharXiv:2610.01025•Oct 2, 2026•0 citations
We present a security analysis of conference key agreement (CKA) in the most adversarial model of device independence (DI). Our protocol can be implemented by any experimental setup that is capable of performing Bell tests [specifically, the Mermin-Ardehali-Belinskii-Klyshko (MABK) inequality], and security can in principle be obtained for any violation of the MABK inequality that detects genuine multipartite entanglement among the NNN parties involved in the protocol. As our main tool, we derive a direct physical connection between the NNN-partite MABK inequality and the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality, showing that certain violations of the MABK inequality correspond to a violation of the CHSH inequality between one of the parties and the other N\ensuremath−1N\ensuremath{-}1N\ensuremath−1. We compare the asymptotic key rate for device-independent conference key agreement (DICKA) to the case where the parties use N\ensuremath−1N\ensuremath{-}1N\ensuremath−1 device-independent quantum key distribution protocols in order to generate a common key. We show that for some regime of noise the DICKA protocol leads to better rates.
Device-independent (DI) protocols, such as DI conference key agreement (DICKA) and DI randomness expansion (DIRE), certify private randomness by observing nonlocal correlations when two or more parties test a Bell inequality. While most DI protocols are restricted to bipartite Bell tests, harnessing multipartite nonlocal correlations may lead to better performance. Here, we consider tripartite DICKA and DIRE protocols based on testing multipartite Bell inequalities, specifically: the Mermin-Ardehali-Belinskii-Klyshko (MABK) inequality, and the Holz and the Parity-CHSH inequalities introduced in the context of DICKA protocols. We evaluate the asymptotic performance of the DICKA (DIRE) protocols in terms of their conference key rate (net randomness generation rate), by deriving lower bounds on the conditional von Neumann entropy of one party's outcome and two parties' outcomes. For the Holz inequality, we prove a tight analytical lower bound on the one-outcome entropy and conjecture a tight lower bound on the two-outcome entropy. We additionally re-derive the analytical one-outcome entropy bound for the MABK inequality with a much simpler method and obtain a numerical lower bound on the two-outcome entropy for the Parity-CHSH inequality. Our simulations show that DICKA and DIRE protocols employing tripartite Bell inequalities can significantly outperform their bipartite counterparts. Moreover, we establish that genuine multipartite entanglement is not a precondition for multipartite DIRE while its necessity for DICKA remains an open question.
Device-independent conference key agreement (DI-CKA) enables N>2N > 2N>2 distant parties to establish a common secret key without detailed characterization of the source or measurement devices. Many existing protocols rely on full-body Bell correlators, whose measurement can be demanding for a large number of parties. Here, we show that two-body correlators alone suffice for DI-CKA using balanced Dicke states for every even N≥4N \geq 4N≥4. We construct two-body Bell inequalities and derive a tight analytical lower bound on the conditional von Neumann entropy by comparing their Bell operators with those of asymmetric Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequalities. In the ideal setting, certified key rates can approach 1−h[(N−2)/(4(N−1))]1-h[(N-2)/(4(N-1))]1−h[(N−2)/(4(N−1))], where hhh is the binary entropy function. This rate remains bounded away from zero as N→∞N \rightarrow \inftyN→∞, tending to 1−h(1/4)≈0.1891-h(1/4) \approx 0.1891−h(1/4)≈0.189 bits per key-generation round. We show that the honest implementation of our protocol is invariant under collective phase noise. Moreover, a complementary full-body Bell construction certifies positive conference-key rates from correlations arbitrarily close to the local set.
Conference key agreement aims to establish shared, private randomness among many separated parties in a network. Device-independent conference key agreement (DICKA) is a variant in which the source and the measurement devices used by each party need not be trusted. So far, DICKA protocols largely fall into two categories: those that rely on violating a joint Bell inequality using genuinely multipartite entangled states and those that concatenate many bipartite protocols. The question of whether a hybrid protocol exists, where a multipartite Bell inequality can be violated using only bipartite entanglement, was asked by Grasselli et al. [Quantum 7, 980 (2023)2521-327X10.22331/q-2023-04-13-980]. We answer this question affirmatively, by constructing an asymptotically secure DICKA protocol achieving the same rate as the concatenation of bipartite device-independent quantum key distribution, yet relying on a single joint Bell violation. Our results prompt further discussion on the benefits of multipartite entanglement for DICKA over its bipartite alternative, and we give an overview of different arguments for near-term devices.
Conference key agreement allows multiple remote parties to establish a shared secret key with information-theoretical security. In device-independent conference key agreement, security can be guaranteed with minimal assumptions on the devices used, provided that a violation of a Bell inequality is observed. However, implementations are extremely challenging because high detection efficiency is required to observe loophole-free Bell violations. Here, we enhance the robustness of device-independent conference key agreement by introducing a new family of multipartite Bell inequalities called the asymmetric parity-Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequalities. We derive a tight analytical lower bound on the conditional von Neumann entropy of the outcomes of one of the parties in a protocol based on this inequality, including noisy preprocessing. Using this bound, we analyze robustness to detection inefficiencies as well as local and global depolarizing noise. We show that the combination of the asymmetric parity-CHSH inequality and noisy preprocessing can significantly improve the robustness to imperfections.
We provide several general upper bounds on the rate of a key secure against a quantum adversary in the device-independent conference key agreement (DI-CKA) scenario. They include bounds by reduced entanglement measures and those based on multipartite secrecy monotones such as a multipartite squashed entanglement-based measure, which we refer to as reduced c-squashed entanglement. We compare the latter bound with the known lower bound for the protocol of conference key distillation based on the parity Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt game. We also show that the gap between the DI-CKA rate and the device-dependent rate is inherited from the bipartite gap between device-independent and device-dependent key rates, giving examples that exhibit the strict gap.
Device-independent conference key agreement (DI-CKA) lets a group of parties establish a shared secret key from untrusted quantum devices, with security certified by non-locality. Existing DI-CKA protocols are each built around a single Bell inequality, typically a multiparty variant of the CHSH game. DI-QKD protocols, in contrast, have been built from a much richer landscape of non-local games, and it has remained unclear how to carry this landscape over to the conference setting. We introduce $\textit{Parity-$G$ games}$, which extend any two-player game GGG to NNN players, for every NNN, provided GGG has an optimal strategy in which one player measures Pauli observables. The extension preserves the quantum and classical values of GGG, and the security of the resulting NNN-party protocol follows from an analysis of the two-player game alone. Our framework recovers the Parity-CHSH game of Ribeiro, Murta and Wehner (Phys. Rev. A, 2018) as a special case. Applied to the Mermin--Peres Magic Square Game, it yields a new NNN-player pseudo-telepathy game, the Parity Magic Square Game\textit{Parity Magic Square Game}Parity Magic Square Game, which ideal devices win in every round. We use it to construct the first\textit{first}first DI-CKA protocol based on a pseudo-telepathy game. We prove the protocol secure against coherent attacks. It produces up to two key bits per round, and at low noise its key rate exceeds that of the DI-CKA protocol based on the Parity-CHSH game.