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arXiv:2503.24318 · Discover Networks

Quantum conference key agreement with classical advantage distillation

Walter O. Krawec

Published Oct 5, 2025• 1 citation
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Abstract

In this work, we prove security of a quantum conference key agreement (QCKA) protocol augmented with a classical advantage distillation (CAD) protocol. We derive a proof of security, in the finite key setting, that is able to bound the secure key rate for any general, coherent, attack. We evaluate the performance of the system, showing our result can improve the noise tolerance of the protocol in some, but not all, scenarios. Specifically, our work can improve key rates in network scenarios where users are not located at equal distances, and where there are asymmetries in the error rate between parties.

DOI
10.1007/s44354-025-00005-y

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arXiv:2207.01643•npj Quantum Information•Aug 22, 2023•53 citations
In this work, we prove security of a quantum conference key agreement (QCKA) protocol augmented with a classical advantage distillation (CAD) protocol. We derive a proof of security, in the finite key setting, that is able to bound the secure key rate for any general, coherent, attack. We evaluate the performance of the system, showing our result can improve the noise tolerance of the protocol in some, but not all, scenarios. Specifically, our work can improve key rates in network scenarios where users are not located at equal distances, and where there are asymmetries in the error rate between parties.
Quantum conference key agreement (QCKA) protocols utilize GHZ states to establish shared group keys between multiple parties. While previous work has shown that standard Classical Advantage Distillation (CAD) protocols can sometimes benefit QCKA performance, it was unknown if past results were asymptotically tight. In this work, we design a new CAD protocol, "Selective Classical Advantage Distillation (S-CAD)", for QCKA, which generalizes prior QCKA+CAD work and allows the parties to selectively enable or disable CAD. We derive an asymptotic proof of security against general coherent attacks, which outperforms prior work. Finally, we evaluate in a variety of simulated star network topologies, showing when S-CAD can help, and when it is best to disable CAD entirely.
In this paper, we revisit the application of classical advantage distillation (CAD) to the decoy-state BB84 protocol. Prior work has shown that CAD can greatly improve maximal distances and noise tolerances of the practical decoy state protocol. However, past work in deriving key-rate bounds for this protocol with CAD have assumed a trivial bound on the quantum entropy, whenever Alice sends a vacuum state in a CAD block (i.e., the entropy of such blocks is taken to be zero). Since such rounds contribute, negatively, to the error correction leakage, this results in a correct, though sub-optimal bound. Here, we derive a new proof of security for CAD applied to the decoy state BB84 protocol, computing a bound on Eve's uncertainty in all possible single and vacuum photon events. We use this to derive a new asymptotic key-rate bound which, we show, outperforms prior work, allowing for increased distances and noise tolerances.
Quantum Conference Key Agreement (QCKA) protocols are designed to allow multiple parties to agree on a shared secret key, secure against computationally unbounded adversaries. In this paper, we consider a high-dimensional QCKA protocol and prove its information theoretic security against arbitrary, general, attacks in the finite-key scenario. Our proof technique may be useful for other high-dimensional multiparty quantum cryptographic protocols. Finally, we evaluate the protocol in a variety of settings, showing that high-dimensional states can greatly benefit QCKA protocols.
Quantum conference key agreement (QCKA) enables multiple users to establish a common secret key with information-theoretic security and is regarded as a key primitive for secure communication in future quantum networks. However, practical implementations of QCKA typically suffer from higher noise levels than conventional bipartite quantum key distribution (QKD), making the improvement of the tolerable error threshold an important challenge. Gottesman and Lo proposed two preprocessing procedures for QKD with two-way classical communication, known as the B-step and the P-step, which enhance the tolerable error threshold. In this paper, we analyze the asymptotic security of QCKA with tripartite GHZ states and two measurement bases using two-way classical communication, including multiple B-steps and P-steps. We derive the corresponding secure key rate analytically and demonstrate that iterative B-steps can increase the tolerable error threshold beyond 20%, significantly improving upon the approximately 11% threshold achievable without two-way classical communication and the approximately 15% threshold obtained with only a single B-step. Our results show that two-way classical communication can substantially enhance the robustness of practical QCKA protocols.
Abstract As an essential ingredient of quantum networks, quantum conference key agreement (QCKA) provides unconditional secret keys among multiple parties, which enables only legitimate users to decrypt the encrypted message. Recently, some QCKA protocols employing twin-field was proposed to promote transmission distance. These protocols, however, suffer from relatively low conference key rate and short transmission distance over asymmetric channels, which demands a prompt solution in practice. Here, we consider a tripartite QCKA protocol utilizing the idea of sending-or-not-sending twin-field scheme and propose a high-efficiency QCKA over asymmetric channels by removing the symmetry parameters condition. Besides, we provide a composable finite-key analysis with rigorous security proof against general attacks by exploiting the entropic uncertainty relation for multiparty system. Our protocol greatly improves the feasibility to establish conference keys over asymmetric channels.
Abstract Quantum conference key agreement (QCKA) allows multiple users to establish a secure key from a shared multi-partite entangled state. In a quantum network, this protocol can be efficiently implemented using a single copy of a N-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state to distil a secure N-user conference key bit, whereas up to N-1 entanglement pairs are consumed in the traditional pair-wise protocol. We demonstrate the advantage provided by GHZ states in a testbed consisting of a photonic six-user quantum network, where four users can distil either a GHZ state or the required number of Bell pairs for QCKA using network routing techniques. In the asymptotic limit, we report a more than two-fold enhancement of the conference key rate when comparing the two protocols. We extrapolate our data set to show that the resource advantage for the GHZ protocol persists when taking into account finite-key effects.