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Chinese Physics B

One-decoy state reference-frame-independent quantum key distribution*

Xiang Li, Hua-Wei Yuan, Chun-Mei Zhang, Qin Wang

Published May 7, 2020• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Reference-frame-independent quantum key distribution (RFI-QKD) has been proven to be very useful and practical under realistic environment. Here, we present a scheme for one-decoy state RFI-QKD based on the work of Rusca et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett. 112, 171104 (2018)], and carry out investigation on its performance under realistic experimental conditions. Numerical simulation results show that the one-decoy state RFI-QKD can achieve comparable performance in terms of secret key rate and transmission distance as the two-decoy state correspondence under practical experimental conditions. On contrast, it does not need to prepare the vacuum state in the former case, substantially reducing the experimental complexity and random number consumptions. Therefore, our present proposal seems very promising in practical implementations of RFI-QKD.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/ab90f6

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Reference-frame-independent quantum key distribution (RFI-QKD) has been proven to be very useful and practical under realistic environment. Here, we present a scheme for one-decoy state RFI-QKD based on the work of Rusca et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett. 112, 171104 (2018)], and carry out investigation on its performance under realistic experimental conditions. Numerical simulation results show that the one-decoy state RFI-QKD can achieve comparable performance in terms of secret key rate and transmission distance as the two-decoy state correspondence under practical experimental conditions. On contrast, it does not need to prepare the vacuum state in the former case, substantially reducing the experimental complexity and random number consumptions. Therefore, our present proposal seems very promising in practical implementations of RFI-QKD.
Reference-frame-independent quantum key distribution (RFI-QKD) enables the generation of secure keys when the reference frame suffers from unknown and slow drifting. To combat the potential photon-number-splitting attacks in RFI-QKD, the decoy-state method should be adopted. Generally, the decoy states are prepared by actively modulating different photon numbers of weak coherent pulses, which, however, may leak the side-channel information due to the imperfect modulation. To address this security loophole, we propose to implement the improved RFI-QKD protocol [Opt. Lett.47, 4219 (2022)10.1364/OL.470558], which bounds the eavesdropper's information analytically and is less sensitive to statistical fluctuations, with passive decoy states. By interfering two weak coherent pulses on a beam splitter and then directing one arm of the outputs into the single-photon avalanche detector (SPAD), different photon-number distributions of pulses can be prepared according to the response status of SPAD. To make this scheme more practical, we consider the inevitable afterpulses of the SPADs for both the transmitter and receiver, and construct an afterpulse-compatible analysis model. Simulation results show that our scheme can achieve good performance in practical scenarios.
Reference-frame-independent measurement-deviceindependent quantum key distribution (RFI-MDI-QKD) can eschew the alignment of reference frames in practical systems and defeat all potential detector side channel attacks. Here, we propose the decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD protocol with biased bases. In this protocol, two legitimate parties Alice and Bob prepare signal states in Z, X, and Y bases and decoy states in X and Y bases, which avoids the futility in Z basis for decoy states and simplifies the operation of existing systems. Considering the security against coherent attacks with statistical fluctuations, we investigate the performance of the decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD protocol with biased bases in the environment of unknown and slowly drifting reference frames and make comparisons with the original decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD protocol under the same conditions. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol can increase the achievable secret key rate and transmission distance obviously compared with the original protocol, which is very promising in real-life QKD systems.
Reference-frame-independent quantum key distribution (RFI QKD) can generate secret keys without the alignment of reference frames, which is very robust in real-life implementations of QKD systems. However, the performance of decoy-state RFI QKD with both source errors and statistical fluctuations is still missing until now. In this paper, we investigate the performance of decoy-state RFI QKD in practical scenarios with two kinds of light sources, the heralded single photon source (HSPS) and the weak coherent source (WCS), and also give clear comparison results of decoy-state RFI QKD with WCS and HSPS. Simulation results show that the secret key rates of decoy-state RFI QKD with WCS are higher than those with HSPS in short distance range, but the secret key rates of RFI QKD with HSPS outperform those with WCS in long distance range.
Reference-frame-independent (RFI) quantum key distribution (QKD) removes the need to actively align Alice and Bob's bases, but existing security proofs and decoy-state treatments are either numerically heavy or overly pessimistic in realistic scenarios. In this work, we revisit the RFI QKD security proof, demonstrating that the protocol is subject to the same constraints as the standard six-state or BB84 protocol, thereby improving its robustness and performance. We then introduce a one-decoy finite-key analysis based on RFI-invariant correlators and virtual quantum bit error rates. Simulations show that our decoy method restores reference frame independent performance and yields higher secret-key rates than the original RFI analysis with three intensities, while simplifying the experimental setup by requiring only two intensity levels.
Reference-frame-independent measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (RFI-MDI-QKD) is proposed to remove all possible detector side channel attacks without the alignment of reference frames. Due to unavoidable multiphoton events in practical sources, the decoy-state method is always adopted in real-life QKD systems. Unlike original MDI-QKD (O-MDI-QKD), the characterization on practical decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD is still absent to date. In this paper, we investigate the performance of practical decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD at different misalignments of reference frames with full parameter optimization when considering statistical fluctuations, and provide a clear comparison between decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD and O-MDI-QKD. Simulation results demonstrate that decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD can exhibit performance comparable to that of O-MDI-QKD in practical scenarios, which is very robust in QKD systems.
Reference-frame-independent quantum key distribution (RFI-QKD) has been proven to be intrinsically robust against slowly varying reference frames under realistic environment. In this paper, we propose a simplified scheme for the passive decoy-state RFI-QKD considering the afterpulsing effect. We investigated the system performance with the weak coherent source (WCS) and parametric down conversion (PDC) source, respectively. Numerical simulation results show that the simplified scheme can achieve comparable secure key rate with the active decoy-state scheme. Our scheme is advantageous to simplify the system implementation and reduces the time cost. Besides, it is proven that the afterpulsing effect plays dominant role in the system. Our work could provide a useful solution for RFI-QKD in practical situations.