Secret keys from quantum correlations

Michel Le Bellac

Andreas Winter

The inverse of Maurer's secret key distillation problem from (many independent realisations of) a triple of random variables X, Y, Z by two players (Alice and Bob) against an eavesdropper (Eve) is considered: the formation of the joint distribution (up to local degrading of Z) from secret key and public communication. We determine the asymptotically minimal amount of secret key for this task, and indeed the full trade-off of secret (between Alice and Bob) vs. public (shared between Alice, Bob and Eve) correlation for this problem. Our result generalises a theorem of Wyner on the "common information of a pair of random variables", which is recovered as the special case of Z being independent of XY. We investigate the secret key required as a function of the probability distribution and compare to an analogous notion based on prior shared entanglement

Giuseppe Prettico, Antonio Acín

Non-additivity is one of the distinctive traits of Quantum Information Theory: the combined use of quantum objects may be more advantageous than the sum of their individual uses. Non-additivity effects have been proven, for example, for quantum channel capacities, entanglement distillation or state estimation. In this work, we consider whether non-additivity effects can be found in Classical Information Theory. We work in the secret-key agreement scenario in which two honest parties, having access to correlated classical data that are also correlated to an eavesdropper, aim at distilling a secret key. Exploiting the analogies between the entanglement and the secret-key agreement scenario, we provide some evidence that the secret-key rate may be a non-additive quantity. In particular, we show that correlations with conjectured bound information become secret-key distillable when combined. Our results constitute a new instance of the subtle relation between the entanglement and secret-key agreement scenario.

I.-O. Stamatescu

Giuseppe Prettico, Antonio Acín

Non-additivity is one of the distinctive traits of Quantum Information Theory: the combined use of quantum objects may be more advantageous than the sum of their individual uses. Non-additivity effects have been proven, for example, for quantum channel capacities, entanglement distillation or state estimation. In this work, we consider whether non-additivity effects can be found in Classical Information Theory. We work in the secret-key agreement scenario in which two honest parties, having access to correlated classical data that are also correlated to an eavesdropper, aim at distilling a secret key. Exploiting the analogies between the entanglement and the secret-key agreement scenario, we provide some evidence that the secret-key rate may be a non-additive quantity. In particular, we show that correlations with conjectured bound information become secret-key distillable when combined. Our results constitute a new instance of the subtle relation between the entanglement and secret-key agreement scenario.