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Physics Letters A

Security of continuous-variable measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution with imperfect state preparation

Hongxin Ma, Peng Huang, Tao Wang, Shiyu Wang, Wan‐Su Bao, Guihua Zeng

Published Sep 26, 2019• 13 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1016/j.physleta.2019.126005

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The measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) protocol is immune to imperfect measurement devices. However, its practicality and performance when implemented in continuous-variable (CV) mode are still not satisfactory. We propose a CV-MDI-QKD protocol based on modulated squeezed states, and analyze its security against two-mode Gaussian attack. The results show that the protocol can achieve a higher secret key rate and transmission distance than previous coherent-state and squeezed-state protocols. A method to compensate the imperfection of a practical homodyne detector using phase-sensitive optical amplifiers is also presented. By setting an appropriate optical amplification gain, realistic detectors with ordinary quantum efficiency can be employed. In addition, we discuss the impact of finite-size effects on the secret key rate of the protocol. The methods presented may aid in the practical application of the CV-MDI-QKD protocol.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises theoretically secure communication. However, it encounters challenges in implementation security and performance due to inevitable device imperfections. Since the proposal of measurement-device-independent (MDI) QKD, the critical step toward practical security is to secure QKD with imperfect sources. The source imperfections manifest as state-preparation uncertainty (SPU) in various aspects, e.g., encoding uncertainty, intensity fluctuation, and imperfect vacuum states. Here, we perform an MDI-QKD experiment and achieve both high practical security and superior performance. We address the general form of SPU and guarantee a tight estimation of the secret key rate based on the operator dominance method. We achieve secure key distribution over 303.37 km, which not only represents the farthest distance in experiments involving SPU but also considers the most SPU scenarios. Our experimental results represent a significant step toward promoting practical and secure quantum communication.
Phase reference calibration is a necessary procedure in practical continuous-variable measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (CV-MDI-QKD) for the need of Bell-state measurement. However, the phase reference calibration may become imperfect in practical applications. We explored the practical security of CV-MDI-QKD with imperfect phase reference calibration under realistic conditions of lossy and noisy quantum channels. Specifically, a comprehensive framework is developed to model and characterize the imperfection of the practical phase reference calibration operation, which is mainly caused by the nonsynchronization of two remote lasers in senders. Security analysis shows that the imperfect phase reference calibration has significant side effects on the performance and security of the CV-MDI-QKD protocol. A tight security bound to thermal excess noise introduced by imperfect phase reference calibration is derived for reverse reconciliation against one-mode collective Gaussian attack in the asymptotic limit, and the upper threshold of this imperfection tolerated by the system is obtained. This security analysis framework can eliminate the security hazards caused by imperfect phase reference calibration without changing the existing CV-MDI-QKD system structure. In addition, this work will improve the practical security framework of CV-MDI-QKD protocol and provide theoretic instruction for the experimental implementation of CV-MDI-QKD protocol.