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arXiv:2305.05930 · Optica Quantum

Security framework for quantum key distribution with imperfect sources

Guillermo Currás-Lorenzo, Margarida Pereira, Go Kato, Marcos Curty, Kiyoshi Tamaki

Published Oct 27, 2025• 22 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Imperfect bit-and-basis encoders compromise the security of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems via modulation flaws, side channels, and inter-pulse correlations, which invalidate standard security proofs. Existing results addressing such imperfections suffer from critical limitations: they either consider only specific flaws, offer an unreasonably poor performance, or require the protocol to be run very slowly. Here, we present a finite-key security proof approach against coherent attacks that incorporates general bit-and-basis encoding imperfections (including modulation flaws, side channels, and inter-pulse correlations) while achieving significantly better performances than previous approaches and requiring only partial characterization.

DOI
10.1364/opticaq.569424

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Imperfect bit-and-basis encoders compromise the security of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems via modulation flaws, side channels, and inter-pulse correlations, which invalidate standard security proofs. Existing results addressing such imperfections suffer from critical limitations: they either consider only specific flaws, offer an unreasonably poor performance, or require the protocol to be run very slowly. Here, we present a finite-key security proof approach against coherent attacks that incorporates general bit-and-basis encoding imperfections (including modulation flaws, side channels, and inter-pulse correlations) while achieving significantly better performances than previous approaches and requiring only partial characterization.
Decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) is the most widely adopted approach for overcoming the limitations of imperfect single-photon sources. However, existing security proofs typically either neglect important device imperfections or rely on assumptions that are difficult to justify in realistic high-speed implementations, such as the independent and identically distributed nature of the emitted signals. In this work, we combine and extend several recent theoretical advances to provide a comprehensive analytical finite-key security proof for decoy-state QKD that simultaneously incorporates multiple practically relevant transmitter and receiver imperfections, including state-preparation flaws, bit and basis side-channel leakage and correlations, setting-independent intensity fluctuations, and detection-efficiency mismatches.
Practical quantum key distribution (QKD) modulators inevitably introduce correlations, causing the state emitted in a given round to depend on the setting choices made in previous rounds. These correlations break the round-by-round independence structure on which many widely used security proof techniques rely, leaving a significant gap between available theoretical guarantees and the reality of practical implementations. In this work, we develop a fully analytical finite-key security proof for decoy-state BB84 against general coherent attacks that rigorously incorporates correlations introduced by Alice's bit-and-basis encoder, while requiring only partial characterization of such correlations. Crucially, it does so without requiring the round partitioning of the data used for phase-error estimation introduced in previous works, showing that this technique is not indispensable for dealing with correlated encoders, and resulting in improved finite-key performance. Moreover, we also analyze the case of ideal single-photon sources, and our results reveal a counterintuitive effect: in the presence of strong encoding correlations, decoy-state BB84 can outperform single-photon implementations.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises information-theoretic security based on quantum mechanics and idealized device models. Practical implementations, however, deviate from these models due to unavoidable device imperfections, and existing security proofs fall short of capturing the complexity of real-world systems. Here we introduce a versatile numerical finite-key security framework valid against general coherent attacks and applicable to a broad class of practical QKD setups. It accommodates most relevant imperfections at both transmitter and receiver, including non-independent-and-identically-distributed (non-IID) signals arising in high-speed QKD systems due to the limited bandwidth of optical modulators, while requiring only partial characterization of the apparatuses. We demonstrate the power of our framework by proving the security of a realistic decoy-state QKD implementation with laser sources, providing a practical route towards rigorous security certification of real-world QKD setups.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers theoretical security guarantees for sharing secure key, but its practical systems face challenges due to the imperfections of devices. Widespread quantum state preparation imperfections, such as correlations between multiple rounds, significantly undermine the real-world security of QKD. In this paper, we propose a protocol that is immune to almost all kinds of state-preparation imperfections over multiple correlated rounds arising from both encoding and unknown non-encoding dimensions. The protocol relies only on three assumptions: the imperfect encoding produces unknown product states rather than entangled ones, a lower bound on the vacuum components is known, and the correlation has a finite range. The proposed protocol is also measurement-device-independent, ensuring high security at both the source and measurement sides. We provide the finite-key security analysis against coherent attacks and conduct numerical simulations to see the performance. The results show that for small correlation ranges, the protocol achieves excellent performance with a maximal transmission loss exceeding 60 dB (>300 km in standard fiber). Even for extreme cases, where one encoding affects up to 500 neighboring rounds, the protocol can still generate secret keys over a 10 dB-loss channel.
Practical QKD modulators introduce correlations between consecutively emitted pulses due to bandwidth limitations, violating key assumptions underlying many security proof techniques. Here, we address this problem by introducing a simple yet powerful mathematical framework to directly extend phase-error-estimation-based security proofs for imperfect but uncorrelated sources to also incorporate encoding correlations. Our framework overcomes important limitations of previous approaches in terms of generality and rigor, significantly narrowing the gap between theoretical security guarantees and real-world QKD implementations.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides information-theoretic security based on quantum mechanics, yet its implementation is hindered by source imperfections. Among these, correlations between transmitted pulses present a critical but underexplored threat to QKD's theoretical security. We propose a general framework for QKD security under correlated sources, achieving the first finite-key analysis by extending and reorganizing QKD rounds using the generalized chain rule. Inspired by side-channel-secure QKD, we design a protocol secure against correlated leakage sources, requiring only the correlation range and lower bounds on the vacuum component of the prepared states. Our framework also applies to other QKD protocols, providing a general approach to address correlation-induced vulnerabilities. Simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of our protocol and its significantly superior tolerance to imperfections compared to existing protocols. This work provides a crucial step toward closing security loopholes in QKD, enhancing its practicality, and ensuring long-distance, high-performance secure communication under real-world constraints.