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arXiv:1801.03443 · Applied Physics Letters

Finite-key analysis for the 1-decoy state QKD protocol

Davide Rusca, Alberto Boaron, Fadri Grünenfelder, Anthony Martin, Hugo Zbinden

Published Apr 23, 2018• 154 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

It has been shown that in the asymptotic case of infinite-key length, the 2-decoy state Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocol outperforms the 1-decoy state protocol. Here, we present a finite-key analysis of the 1-decoy method. Interestingly, we find that for practical block sizes of up to 108 bits, the 1-decoy protocol achieves for almost all experimental settings higher secret key rates than the 2-decoy protocol. Since using only one decoy is also easier to implement, we conclude that it is the best choice for QKD, in most common practical scenarios.

DOI
10.1063/1.5023340

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It has been shown that in the asymptotic case of infinite-key length, the 2-decoy state Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocol outperforms the 1-decoy state protocol. Here, we present a finite-key analysis of the 1-decoy method. Interestingly, we find that for practical block sizes of up to 108 bits, the 1-decoy protocol achieves for almost all experimental settings higher secret key rates than the 2-decoy protocol. Since using only one decoy is also easier to implement, we conclude that it is the best choice for QKD, in most common practical scenarios.
It has been shown that in the asymptotic case of infinite-key length, the 2-decoy state Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocol outperforms the 1-decoy state protocol. Here, we present a finite-key analysis of the 1-decoy method. Interestingly, we find that for practical block sizes of up to 10^8 bits, the 1-decoy protocol achieves for almost all experimental settings higher secret key rates than the 2-decoy protocol. Since using only one decoy is also easier to implement, we conclude that it is the best choice for QKD, in most common practical scenarios.
The decoy state quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol is proven to be an effective strategy against the photon number splitting attack. It was shown that the 1-decoy state protocol, easier to implement in the practical QKD system, outperforms the 2-decoy state protocol for block sizes of up to 108 bits. How intensity fluctuations influence the performance of the 1-decoy state protocol with finite resources remains a pending issue. In this paper, we present a finite-key analysis of the 1-decoy state protocol with intensity fluctuations and obtain the secret key rate formula about intensity fluctuations. Our numerical simulation results show that the stronger the intensity fluctuations, the lower the secret key rate for a small data block size of a few bits. Our research can provide theoretical implications for the selection of data size in the QKD system with intensity fluctuations.
The decoy-state Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol is widely regarded as the de facto standard for practical implementations. On the receiver side, passive basis choice is attractive because it significantly reduces the need for random number generators and eliminates the need for optical modulators. Despite these advantages, a finite-key analytical security proof for the decoy-state BB84 protocol, where the basis is chosen passively with a biased probability, has been lacking. In this work, we present a simple analytical finite-key security proof for this setting, yielding a closed-form secret-key rate formula that can be directly evaluated using experimentally accessible parameters. Numerical simulations show that the key rates of passiveand active-measurement implementations are nearly identical, indicating that passive measurement does not compromise key-generation efficiency in practical QKD systems.
Abstract Compared with two-level quantum key distribution (QKD), high-dimensional QKD enables two distant parties to share a secret key at a higher rate. We provide a finite-key security analysis for the recently proposed practical high-dimensional decoy-state QKD protocol based on time-energy entanglement. We employ two methods to estimate the statistical fluctuation of the postselection probability and give a tighter bound on the secure-key capacity. By numerical evaluation, we show the finite-key effect on the secure-key capacity in different conditions. Moreover, our approach could be used to optimize parameters in practical implementations of high-dimensional QKD.
Every security analysis of quantum key distribution relies on a faithful modeling of the employed quantum states. The properties of decoy state protocol based on only two decoy states and one signal state are analyzed. The performance of decoy state quantum key distribution protocol with finite resources is calculated by considering the statistical fluctuation for the yield and error rate of the quantum state. The relationship between key generation rate and transmission distance is compared by considering the data-set size to be N=108 (N=109 or N=1010 or the asymptotic case). These may provide some important parameters for the practical quantum key distribution system.