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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Unconditional security of phase-coded quantum key distribution with strong reference pulse

Masato Koashi

Published Jan 11, 2005• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We discuss the unconditional security of a quantum key distribution protocol in which bit values are encoded in the phase of a weak coherent-state pulse relative to a strong reference pulse, which is essentially the one proposed by Bennett in 1992 (the B92 scheme). In the BB84 protocol with a perfect single photon source, the key rate decreases linearly with the transmission T of the channel. If we simply replace this source with a weak coherent-state pulse, the key rate drops more rapidly (as O(η2)) since the presence of multiple photons favors the eavesdropper, Eve. The B92 protocol, if modified to be encoded on the polarization of a single photon, also shows O(η2) dependence. This comes from Eve's option of sending the vacuum state, which is always registered as an inconclusive result and never causes bit errors. In the original B92 scheme with phase coding, Eve has no such option--replacing the weak pulse by the vacuum cannot avoid errors completely, thanks to the strong reference pulse. This should make the scheme stronger against the loss in the channel even coherent-state pulses from conventional lasers are used. We have obtained an unconditional security proof allowing the presence of small bit errors, and confirmed the above observation in a rigorous way. The key rate is found to drop linearly with the transmission η, and it is lower than the BB84 with a perfect single-photon source only by a constant.

DOI
10.1117/12.576241

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Unconditional security of the Bennett 1992 quantum-key-distribution scheme with a strong reference pulse

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We prove the unconditional security of the original Bennett 1992 protocol with strong reference pulse. We show that we may place a projection onto suitably defined qubit spaces before the receiver, which makes the analysis as simple as qubit-based protocols. Unlike the single-photon-based qubits, the qubits identified in this scheme are almost surely detected by the receiver even after a lossy channel. This leads to the key generation rate that is proportional to the channel transmission rate for proper choices of experimental parameters.

arXiv:quant-ph/0607082•Physical Review A•Sep 1, 2009•56 citations
We discuss the unconditional security of a quantum key distribution protocol in which bit values are encoded in the phase of a weak coherent-state pulse relative to a strong reference pulse, which is essentially the one proposed by Bennett in 1992 (the B92 scheme). In the BB84 protocol with a perfect single photon source, the key rate decreases linearly with the transmission T of the channel. If we simply replace this source with a weak coherent-state pulse, the key rate drops more rapidly (as O(η2)) since the presence of multiple photons favors the eavesdropper, Eve. The B92 protocol, if modified to be encoded on the polarization of a single photon, also shows O(η2) dependence. This comes from Eve's option of sending the vacuum state, which is always registered as an inconclusive result and never causes bit errors. In the original B92 scheme with phase coding, Eve has no such option--replacing the weak pulse by the vacuum cannot avoid errors completely, thanks to the strong reference pulse. This should make the scheme stronger against the loss in the channel even coherent-state pulses from conventional lasers are used. We have obtained an unconditional security proof allowing the presence of small bit errors, and confirmed the above observation in a rigorous way. The key rate is found to drop linearly with the transmission η, and it is lower than the BB84 with a perfect single-photon source only by a constant.
We discuss the unconditional security of a quantum key distribution protocol in which bit values are encoded in the phase of a weak coherent-state pulse relative to a strong reference pulse, which is essentially the one proposed by Bennett in 1992 (the B92 scheme). In the BB84 protocol with a perfect single photon source, the key rate decreases linearly with the transmission η of the channel. If we simply replace this source with a weak coherent-state pulse, the key rate drops more rapidly (as O(η)) since the presence of multiple photons favors the eavesdropper, Eve. The B92 protocol, if modified to be encoded on the polarization of a single photon, also shows O(η) dependence. This comes from Eve’s option of sending the vacuum state, which is always registered as an inconclusive result and never causes bit errors. In the original B92 scheme with phase coding, Eve has no such option replacing the weak pulse by the vacuum cannot avoid errors completely, thanks to the strong reference pulse. This should make the scheme stronger against the loss in the channel even coherent-state pulses from conventional lasers are used. We have obtained an unconditional security proof allowing the presence of small bit errors, and confirmed the above observation in a rigorous way. The key rate is found to drop linearly with the transmission η, and it is lower than the BB84 with a perfect single-photon source only by a constant.
In the BB84 protocol with a perfect single photon source, the key rate decreases linearly with the transmission η of the channel. If we simply replace this source with a weak coherent-state pulse, the key rate drops more rapidly (as O(η2)) since the presence of multiple photons favors the eavesdropper. Here we discuss the unconditional security of a quantum key distribution protocol in which bit values are encoded in the phase of a weak coherent-state pulse relative to a strong reference pulse, which is essentially the one proposed by Bennett in 1992 (the B92 scheme). We show that in the limit of high loss in the transmission channel, we can construct a secret key with a rate proportional to the transmission η of the channel.
We prove the security of the Bennett-Brassard (BB84) quantum key distribution protocol in the case where the key information is encoded in the relative phase of a coherent-state reference pulse and a weak coherent-state signal pulse, as in some practical implementations of the protocol. In contrast to previous work, our proof applies even if the eavesdropper knows the phase of the reference pulse, provided that this phase is not modulated by the source, and even if the reference pulse is bright. The proof also applies to the case where the key is encoded in the photon polarization of a weak coherent-state pulse with a known phase, but only if the phases of the four BB84 signal states are judiciously chosen. The achievable key generation rate scales quadratically with the transmission in the channel, just as for BB84 with phase-randomized weak coherent-state signals (when decoy states are not used). For the case where the phase of the reference pulse is strongly modulated by the source, we exhibit an explicit attack that allows the eavesdropper to learn every key bit in a parameter regime where a protocol using phase-randomized signals is provably secure.
In this thesis, we analyze the security of the Bennett 1992 quantum key-distribution protocol (B92 protocol) over a realistic channel assuming that bit values are encoded in single photon polarization states. First, we study the security of the B92 protocol against individual attack. In the individual attack, eavesdropper (Eve) interacts a qubit emitted by the sender (Alice) with her probe system followed by a measurement on each probe. To make our analysis simple, we propose a modified B92 protocol. Using this protocol, Alice and the receiver (Bob) can estimate Eve's information gain as a function of a few parameters that reflect the imperfections of devices or Eve's disturbance. We find a counter-intuitive behavior of Eve's maximum information gain, i.e., it decreases as the amount of disturbances increases. We also estimate the secret key gain that is the net growth of the secret key per one pulse. We show the region where the modified B92 protocol over a realistic channel is secure against individual attack. Next, we study the unconditional security of the B92 protocol, which is the security against any attack. To prove the security, we first propose a protocol that is unconditionally secure and can be reduced to the B92 protocol. This protocol employs the entanglement distillation protocol (EDP) based on a filtering operation and the Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) quantum error correcting codes. The bit errors and the phase errors, which have to be estimated for the EDP based on the CSS codes, are correlated after the filtering operation, and we can bound the amount of phase errors from the observed bit errors by an estimation method involving nonorthogonal measurements. The angle between the two states shows a trade-off between accuracy of the estimation and robustness to noises. We show a way to run the unconditionally secure B92.
We prove the unconditional security of the original Bennett 1992 protocol with strong reference pulse. We show that we may place a projection onto suitably defined qubit spaces before the receiver, which makes the analysis as simple as qubit-based protocols. Unlike the single-photon-based qubits, the qubits identified in this scheme are almost surely detected by the receiver even after a lossy channel. This leads to the key generation rate that is proportional to the channel transmission rate for proper choices of experimental parameters.