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Chinese Physics B

Measurement-device-independent quantum cryptographic conferencing with an untrusted source

Ruike Chen, Wan‐Su Bao, Yang Wang, Hai-Ze Bao, Chun Hua Zhou, Mu-Sheng Jiang, Hong-Wei Li

Published Jan 1, 2017• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Measurement-device-independent quantum cryptographic conferencing (MDI-QCC) protocol puts MDI quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) forwards to multi-party applications, and suggests a significant framework for practical multi-party quantum communication. In order to mitigate the experimental complexity of MDI-QCC and remove the key assumption (the sources are trusted) in MDI-QCC, we extend the framework of MDI-QKD with an untrusted source to MDI-QCC and give the rigorous security analysis of MDI-QCC with an untrusted source. What is more, in the security analysis we clearly provide a rigorous analytical method for parameters’ estimation, which with simple modifications can be applied to not only MDI-QKD with an untrusted source but also arbitrary multi-party communication protocol with an untrusted source. The simulation results show that at reasonable distances the asymptotic key rates for the two cases (with trusted and untrusted sources) almost overlap, which indicates the feasibility of our protocol.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/26/1/010302

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Measurement-device-independent quantum cryptographic conferencing (MDI-QCC) protocol puts MDI quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) forwards to multi-party applications, and suggests a significant framework for practical multi-party quantum communication. In order to mitigate the experimental complexity of MDI-QCC and remove the key assumption (the sources are trusted) in MDI-QCC, we extend the framework of MDI-QKD with an untrusted source to MDI-QCC and give the rigorous security analysis of MDI-QCC with an untrusted source. What is more, in the security analysis we clearly provide a rigorous analytical method for parameters’ estimation, which with simple modifications can be applied to not only MDI-QKD with an untrusted source but also arbitrary multi-party communication protocol with an untrusted source. The simulation results show that at reasonable distances the asymptotic key rates for the two cases (with trusted and untrusted sources) almost overlap, which indicates the feasibility of our protocol.
Measurement-device-independent quantum cryptographic conferencing (MDI-QCC) protocol suggests an important scheme for practical multiparty quantum communication. As far as we know, MDI-QCC or MDI-quantum key distribution protocols always assume that the decoy state strategies used at each user's side are the same. In this study, to mitigate the system complexity and to improve the performance of MDI-QCC protocol in the finite-key case, we propose an asymmetric decoy state method for MDI-QCC protocol, and present security analysis and numerical simulations. From numerical simulations, our protocol can achieve better performance in the finite-key case. That is, with a finite data size of 10 11 , it can achieve nonzero secret key rate over 43.6 km.
Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) can provide enhanced security compared to traditional QKD, and it constitutes an important framework for a quantum network with an untrusted network server. Still, a key assumption in MDI-QKD is that the sources are trusted. We propose here a MDI quantum network with a single untrusted source. We have derived a complete proof of the unconditional security of MDI-QKD with an untrusted source. Using simulations, we have considered various real-life imperfections in its implementation, and the simulation results show that MDI-QKD with an untrusted source provides a key generation rate that is close to the rate of initial MDI-QKD in the asymptotic setting. Our work proves the feasibility of the realization of a quantum network. The network users need only low-cost modulation devices, and they can share both an expensive detector and a complicated laser provided by an untrusted network server.
The quantum cryptographic conferencing (QCC) protocol, which distributes identical secure keys to user groups, is a crucial component of the quantum network. Previous experimental works have implemented the measurement-device-independent (MDI) QCC, of which the key rate in an N-user network scales as R∼O(ηN)R\sim O(η^N)R∼O(ηN). Building on the MDI QCC protocol, the asynchronous MDI QCC protocol theoretically integrates the mode-pairing scheme into QCC, significantly boosting the key rate to R∼O(η)R\sim O(η)R∼O(η) in the ideal case, which is independent of the number of users, thus demonstrating greater application potential. Experimentally, in this Letter, we implement the three-user asynchronous MDI QCC network without phase locking by adopting the fast Fourier transform-based frequency difference estimation and the phase drift compensation technique. Finally, we achieve a key rate of about 4.470×10−94.470\times 10^{-9}4.470×10−9 bits per pulse under a maximum overall loss of about 59.6 dB. This Letter provides a scalable solution for the development of large-scale quantum communication networks in the future.
Quantum cryptographic conferencing (QCC) allows sharing secret keys among multiple distant users and plays a crucial role in quantum networks. Because of the fragility and low generation rate of genuine multipartite entangled states required in QCC, realizing and extending QCC with the entanglement-based protocol is challenging. Measurement-device-independent (MDI) QCC, which removes all detector side channels, is a feasible long-distance quantum communication scheme to practically generate multipartite correlation with multiphoton projection measurement. Here we experimentally realize the three-user MDI QCC protocol with four-intensity decoy-state method, in which we employ the polarization encoding and the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state projection measurement. Our work demonstrates the experimental feasibility of the MDI QCC, which lays the foundation for the future realization of quantum networks with multipartite communication tasks.
Remote distribution of secret keys is a challenging task in quantum cryptography. A significant step in this direction is the measurement-device independence quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD). For two remote (or independent) parties Alice and Bob who initially no share secret information, the MDI-QKD enables them to share a secret key by the measurement of an untrusted relay. Unfortunately, the MDI-QKD yields the assumption that the devices of both Alice and Bob have to be trusted. Here, we show that QKD between two independent parties can also be realized even if the device of either Alice or Bob is untrusted. We tackle the problem by resorting to the recently developed one-sided device-independent QKD protocol. We derive conditions on the extracted secret key to be unconditionally secure against arbitary attacks in the limit of asymptotic keys. In the presence of Gaussian states and measurements, we theoretically demonstrate our scheme is feasible, which could be an attractive candidate for long distance secret communication.
Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI QKD) is an efficient way to share secrets using untrusted measurement devices. However, the assumption on the characterizations of encoding states is still necessary in this promising protocol, which may lead to unnecessary complexity and potential loopholes in realistic implementations. Here, by using the mismatched-basis statistics, we present the first proof-of-principle experiment of MDI QKD with uncharacterized encoding sources. In this demonstration, the encoded states are only required to be constrained in a two-dimensional Hilbert space, and two distant parties (Alice and Bob) are resistant to state preparation flaws even if they have no idea about the detailed information of their encoding states. The positive final secure key rates of our system exhibit the feasibility of this novel protocol, and demonstrate its value for the application of secure communication with uncharacterized devices.