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arXiv:1907.10288 · New Journal of Physics

Conference key agreement with single-photon interference

Federico Grasselli, Hermann Kampermann, Dagmar Bruß

Published Nov 13, 2019• 69 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract The intense research activity on Twin-Field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) is motivated by the fact that two users can establish a secret key by relying on single-photon interference in an untrusted node. Thanks to this feature, variants of the protocol have been proven to beat the point-to-point private capacity of a lossy quantum channel. Here we generalize the main idea of the TF-QKD protocol introduced by Curty et al to the multipartite scenario, by devising a conference key agreement (CKA) where the users simultaneously distill a secret conference key through single-photon interference. The new CKA is better suited to high-loss scenarios than previous multipartite QKD schemes and it employs for the first time a W-class state as its entanglement resource. We prove the protocol’s security in the finite-key regime and under general attacks. We also compare its performance with the iterative use of bipartite QKD protocols and show that our truly multipartite scheme can be advantageous, depending on the loss and on the state preparation.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/ab573e

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Abstract The intense research activity on Twin-Field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) is motivated by the fact that two users can establish a secret key by relying on single-photon interference in an untrusted node. Thanks to this feature, variants of the protocol have been proven to beat the point-to-point private capacity of a lossy quantum channel. Here we generalize the main idea of the TF-QKD protocol introduced by Curty et al to the multipartite scenario, by devising a conference key agreement (CKA) where the users simultaneously distill a secret conference key through single-photon interference. The new CKA is better suited to high-loss scenarios than previous multipartite QKD schemes and it employs for the first time a W-class state as its entanglement resource. We prove the protocol’s security in the finite-key regime and under general attacks. We also compare its performance with the iterative use of bipartite QKD protocols and show that our truly multipartite scheme can be advantageous, depending on the loss and on the state preparation.
Twin-field quantum key distribution (TFQKD) enables two distant parties to establish a shared secret key, by interfering weak coherent pulses (WCPs) in an intermediate measuring station. This allows TFQKD to reach greater distances than traditional QKD schemes and makes it the only scheme capable of beating the repeaterless bound on the bipartite private capacity. Here, we generalize TFQKD to the multipartite scenario. Specifically, we propose a practical conference key agreement protocol that only uses WCPs and linear optics and prove its security with a multiparty decoy-state method. Our protocol allows an arbitrary number of parties to establish a secret conference key by single-photon interference, enabling it to overcome recent bounds on the rate at which conference keys can be established in quantum networks without a repeater.
Abstract Twin-field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) represents a novel QKD approach whose principal merit is to beat the point-to-point private capacity of a lossy quantum channel, thanks to performing single-photon interference in an untrusted node. Indeed, recent security proofs of various TF-QKD type protocols have confirmed that the secret key rate of these schemes scales essentially as the square root of the transmittance of the channel. Here, we focus on the TF-QKD protocol introduced by Curty et al, whose secret key rate is nearly an order of magnitude higher than previous solutions. Its security relies on the estimation of the detection probabilities associated to various photon-number states through the decoy-state method. We derive analytical bounds on these quantities assuming that each party uses either two, three or four decoy intensity settings, and we investigate the protocol’s performance in this scenario. Our simulations show that two decoy intensity settings are enough to beat the point-to-point private capacity of the channel, and that the use of four decoys is already basically optimal, in the sense that it almost reproduces the ideal scenario of infinite decoys. We also observe that the protocol seems to be quite robust against intensity fluctuations of the optical pulses prepared by the parties.
Abstract Twin-field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) was conjectured to beat the private capacity of a point-to-point QKD link by using single-photon interference in a central measuring station. This remarkable conjecture has recently triggered an intense research activity to prove its security. Here, we introduce a TF-type QKD protocol which is conceptually simpler than the original proposal. It relies on the pre-selection of a global phase, instead of the post-selection of a global phase, which significantly simplifies its security analysis and is arguably less demanding experimentally. We demonstrate that the secure key rate of our protocol has a square-root improvement over the point-to-point private capacity, as conjectured by the original TF QKD.
Quantum Conference Key Agreement (CKA) provides a secure method for multi-party communication. A recently developed interference-based prepare-and-measure quantum CKA possesses the advantages of measurement-device-independence, namely, being immune to side-channels from the detector side. Besides, it achieves good key rate performance, especially for high-loss channels, due to the use of single photon interference. Meanwhile, several fully passive QKD schemes have been proposed, which eliminate all side channels from the source modulation side. We extend the fully passive idea to an interference-based CKA, which has a high level of implementation security for many-user communication.
Abstract Quantum conference key agreement (CKA) enables key sharing among multiple trusted users with information-theoretic security. Currently, the key rates of most quantum CKA protocols suffer from the limit of the total efficiency among quantum channels. Inspired by the coherent one-way and twin-field quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, we propose a quantum CKA protocol of three users. Exploiting coherent states with intensity 0 and μ to encode logic bits, our protocol can break the limit. Additionally, the requirements of phase randomization and multiple intensity modulation are removed in our protocol, making its experimental demonstration simple.
Abstract Conference key agreement (CKA), or multipartite key distribution, is a cryptographic task where more than two parties wish to establish a common secret key. A composition of bipartite quantum key distribution protocols can accomplish this task. However, the existence of multipartite quantum correlations allows for new and potentially more efficient protocols, to be applied in future quantum networks. Here, the existing quantum CKA protocols based on multipartite entanglement are reviewed, both in the device‐dependent and the device‐independent scenario.