Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Optical realisation of Quantum Digital Signatures without quantum memory

Robert John Collins, Ross J. Donaldson, Vedran Dunjko, Petros Wallden, Patrick J. Clarke, Erika Andersson, John Jeffers, Gerald S. Buller

Published Nov 22, 2013• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

Digital signatures are widely used to provide security for electronic communications, for example in financial transactions and electronic mail. Currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, only offer security relying on unproven computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signatures (QDS) offer information-theoretic security based on laws of quantum mechanics (e.g. Gottesman and Chuang 2001). Here, security against forging relies on the impossibility of perfectly distinguishing between non-orthogonal quantum states. A serious drawback of previous QDS schemes is however that they require long-term quantum memory, making them unfeasible in practice. We present the first realisation of a scheme (Dunjko et al 2013) that does not need quantum memory, and which also uses only standard linear optical components and photodetectors. To achieve this, the recipients measure the distributed quantum signature states using a new type of quantum measurement, quantum state elimination (e.g. Barnett 2009, Bandyopadhyay et al 2013). This significantly advances QDS as a quantum technology with potential for real applications.

Related papers

Realization of Quantum Digital Signatures without the Requirement of Quantum Memory

Robert John Collins, Ross J. Donaldson, Vedran Dunjko +5 more

Digital signatures are widely used to provide security for electronic communications, for example, in financial transactions and electronic mail. Currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, only offer security relying on unproven computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signatures offer information-theoretic security based on laws of quantum mechanics. Here, security against forging relies on the impossibility of perfectly distinguishing between nonorthogonal quantum states. A serious drawback of previous quantum digital signature schemes is that they require long-term quantum memory, making them impractical at present. We present the first realization of a scheme that does not need quantum memory and which also uses only standard linear optical components and photodetectors. In our realization, the recipients measure the distributed quantum signature states using a new type of quantum measurement, quantum state elimination. This significantly advances quantum digital signatures as a quantum technology with potential for real applications.

arXiv:1311.5760•Physical Review Letters•Jul 21, 2014•144 citations

Quantum Digital Signatures without Quantum Memory

Vedran Dunjko, Petros Wallden, Erika Andersson

Quantum digital signatures (QDSs) allow the sending of messages from one sender to multiple recipients, with the guarantee that messages cannot be forged or tampered with. Additionally, messages cannot be repudiated--if one recipient accepts a message, she is guaranteed that others will accept the same message as well. While messaging with these types of security guarantees are routinely performed in the modern digital world, current technologies only offer security under computational assumptions. QDSs, on the other hand, offer security guaranteed by quantum mechanics. All thus far proposed variants of QDSs require long-term, high quality quantum memory, making them unfeasible in the foreseeable future. Here, we present a QDS scheme where no quantum memory is required, which also needs just linear optics. This makes QDSs feasible with current technology.

arXiv:1309.1375•Physical Review Letters•Jan 31, 2014•167 citations

An in fiber experimental approach to photonic quantum digital signatures that does not require quantum memory

Robert John Collins, Ross J. Donaldson, Vedran Dunjko +5 more

Classical digital signatures are commonly used in e-mail, electronic financial transactions and other forms of electronic communications to ensure that messages have not been tampered with in transit, and that messages are transferrable. The security of commonly used classical digital signature schemes relies on the computational difficulty of inverting certain mathematical functions. However, at present, there are no such one-way functions which have been proven to be hard to invert. With enough computational resources certain implementations of classical public key cryptosystems can be, and have been, broken with current technology. It is nevertheless possible to construct information-theoretically secure signature schemes, including quantum digital signature schemes. Quantum signature schemes can be made information theoretically secure based on the laws of quantum mechanics, while classical comparable protocols require additional resources such as secret communication and a trusted authority. Early demonstrations of quantum digital signatures required quantum memory, rendering them impractical at present. Our present implementation is based on a protocol that does not require quantum memory. It also uses the new technique of unambiguous quantum state elimination, Here we report experimental results for a test-bed system, recorded with a variety of different operating parameters, along with a discussion of aspects of the system security.

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Oct 13, 2014•1 citation

Quantum digital signatures with quantum-key-distribution components

Petros Wallden, Vedran Dunjko, Adrian Kent +1 more

Digital signatures guarantee the authenticity and transferability of messages and are widely used in modern communication. The security of currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, relies on computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signature (QDS) schemes offer information-theoretic security guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanics. We present two QDS protocols which have the same experimental requirements as quantum key distribution, which is already commercially available. We also give a security proof for the presented QDS schemes against coherent forging attacks.

arXiv:1403.5551•Physical Review A•Apr 7, 2015•137 citations

Quantum digital signature scheme

Nadeem, Muhammad, Xiaolin L. Wang

Digital signatures are the building blocks of modern communication to prevent masquerading by any party other than recipients, repudiation by signatory and forgery by any individual recipient. Digital signature scheme is said to be standard if the signature (a) is a pattern depending upon the message to be signed, (b) is built upon some information publically known and unique to the signatory, (c) can be stored by all the recipients. While classical methods provide computational security only, quantum mechanics guarantees information-theoretically secure and standard digital signature schemes. However, standard quantum digital signature schemes are based on quantum one-way functions and hence require long term quantum memory for storing quantum signatures, which is not practically feasible yet. We demonstrate here a standard quantum digital signature scheme by replacing quantum one-way functions with multiparty controlled EPR channels. It allows signatory to generate non-locally correlated quantum signatures, instead of multiple copies of a unique quantum state, and assures security against any individual since others have non-locally correlated information.

arXiv:1507.03581•Jul 13, 2015•3 citations

Secure quantum signatures: a practical quantum technology (Conference Presentation)

Erika Andersson

Modern cryptography encompasses much more than encryption of secret messages. Signature schemes are widely used to guarantee that messages cannot be forged or tampered with, for example in e-mail, software updates and electronic commerce. Messages are also transferrable, which distinguishes digital signatures from message authentication. Transferability means that messages can be forwarded; in other words, that a sender is unlikely to be able to make one recipient accept a message which is subsequently rejected by another recipient if the message is forwarded. Similar to public-key encryption, the security of commonly used signature schemes relies on the assumed computational difficulty of problems such as finding discrete logarithms or factoring large primes. With quantum computers, such assumptions would no longer be valid. Partly for this reason, it is desirable to develop signature schemes with unconditional or information-theoretic security. Quantum signature schemes are one possible solution. Similar to quantum key distribution (QKD), their unconditional security relies only on the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum signatures can be realized with the same system components as QKD, but are so far less investigated. This talk aims to provide an introduction to quantum signatures and to review theoretical and experimental progress so far.

•Dec 7, 2016•0 citations
Digital signatures are widely used to provide security for electronic communications, for example in financial transactions and electronic mail. Currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, only offer security relying on unproven computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signatures (QDS) offer information-theoretic security based on laws of quantum mechanics (e.g. Gottesman and Chuang 2001). Here, security against forging relies on the impossibility of perfectly distinguishing between non-orthogonal quantum states. A serious drawback of previous QDS schemes is however that they require long-term quantum memory, making them unfeasible in practice. We present the first realisation of a scheme (Dunjko et al 2013) that does not need quantum memory, and which also uses only standard linear optical components and photodetectors. To achieve this, the recipients measure the distributed quantum signature states using a new type of quantum measurement, quantum state elimination (e.g. Barnett 2009, Bandyopadhyay et al 2013). This significantly advances QDS as a quantum technology with potential for real applications.
Digital signatures are widely used to provide security for electronic communications, for example, in financial transactions and electronic mail. Currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, only offer security relying on unproven computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signatures offer information-theoretic security based on laws of quantum mechanics. Here, security against forging relies on the impossibility of perfectly distinguishing between nonorthogonal quantum states. A serious drawback of previous quantum digital signature schemes is that they require long-term quantum memory, making them impractical at present. We present the first realization of a scheme that does not need quantum memory and which also uses only standard linear optical components and photodetectors. In our realization, the recipients measure the distributed quantum signature states using a new type of quantum measurement, quantum state elimination. This significantly advances quantum digital signatures as a quantum technology with potential for real applications.
Quantum digital signatures (QDSs) allow the sending of messages from one sender to multiple recipients, with the guarantee that messages cannot be forged or tampered with. Additionally, messages cannot be repudiated--if one recipient accepts a message, she is guaranteed that others will accept the same message as well. While messaging with these types of security guarantees are routinely performed in the modern digital world, current technologies only offer security under computational assumptions. QDSs, on the other hand, offer security guaranteed by quantum mechanics. All thus far proposed variants of QDSs require long-term, high quality quantum memory, making them unfeasible in the foreseeable future. Here, we present a QDS scheme where no quantum memory is required, which also needs just linear optics. This makes QDSs feasible with current technology.
Classical digital signatures are commonly used in e-mail, electronic financial transactions and other forms of electronic communications to ensure that messages have not been tampered with in transit, and that messages are transferrable. The security of commonly used classical digital signature schemes relies on the computational difficulty of inverting certain mathematical functions. However, at present, there are no such one-way functions which have been proven to be hard to invert. With enough computational resources certain implementations of classical public key cryptosystems can be, and have been, broken with current technology. It is nevertheless possible to construct information-theoretically secure signature schemes, including quantum digital signature schemes. Quantum signature schemes can be made information theoretically secure based on the laws of quantum mechanics, while classical comparable protocols require additional resources such as secret communication and a trusted authority. Early demonstrations of quantum digital signatures required quantum memory, rendering them impractical at present. Our present implementation is based on a protocol that does not require quantum memory. It also uses the new technique of unambiguous quantum state elimination, Here we report experimental results for a test-bed system, recorded with a variety of different operating parameters, along with a discussion of aspects of the system security.
Digital signatures guarantee the authenticity and transferability of messages and are widely used in modern communication. The security of currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, relies on computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signature (QDS) schemes offer information-theoretic security guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanics. We present two QDS protocols which have the same experimental requirements as quantum key distribution, which is already commercially available. We also give a security proof for the presented QDS schemes against coherent forging attacks.
Digital signatures are the building blocks of modern communication to prevent masquerading by any party other than recipients, repudiation by signatory and forgery by any individual recipient. Digital signature scheme is said to be standard if the signature (a) is a pattern depending upon the message to be signed, (b) is built upon some information publically known and unique to the signatory, (c) can be stored by all the recipients. While classical methods provide computational security only, quantum mechanics guarantees information-theoretically secure and standard digital signature schemes. However, standard quantum digital signature schemes are based on quantum one-way functions and hence require long term quantum memory for storing quantum signatures, which is not practically feasible yet. We demonstrate here a standard quantum digital signature scheme by replacing quantum one-way functions with multiparty controlled EPR channels. It allows signatory to generate non-locally correlated quantum signatures, instead of multiple copies of a unique quantum state, and assures security against any individual since others have non-locally correlated information.
Modern cryptography encompasses much more than encryption of secret messages. Signature schemes are widely used to guarantee that messages cannot be forged or tampered with, for example in e-mail, software updates and electronic commerce. Messages are also transferrable, which distinguishes digital signatures from message authentication. Transferability means that messages can be forwarded; in other words, that a sender is unlikely to be able to make one recipient accept a message which is subsequently rejected by another recipient if the message is forwarded. Similar to public-key encryption, the security of commonly used signature schemes relies on the assumed computational difficulty of problems such as finding discrete logarithms or factoring large primes. With quantum computers, such assumptions would no longer be valid. Partly for this reason, it is desirable to develop signature schemes with unconditional or information-theoretic security. Quantum signature schemes are one possible solution. Similar to quantum key distribution (QKD), their unconditional security relies only on the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum signatures can be realized with the same system components as QKD, but are so far less investigated. This talk aims to provide an introduction to quantum signatures and to review theoretical and experimental progress so far.