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Fiber & Integrated Optics

High-dimensional quantum key distribution with statistical and intensity fluctuations

Yang Wang, Ya-Hui Gan

Published Jul 3, 2020• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

High-dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) can higher the secret-key capacity and tolerate more errors. Several HD-QKD experiments have been demonstrated over deployed fibers to show promising future toward high-dimensional quantum communication networks. However, the practical security of HD-QKD systems should be widely considered before large-scale application of HD-QKD systems. In this paper, we focus on the HD-QKD based on the dispersive optics (DO-QKD) with both statistical and intensity fluctuations. For the condition only with statistical fluctuations, we present the parameter estimation based on an improved Chernoff bound. When considering the condition with both statistical and intensity fluctuations, we present the parameter estimation based on Azuma’s inequality. By numerical simulations, we find that the parameter estimation for DO-QKD based on the improved Chernoff bound is tighter than the previous work in terms of the secret-key capacity and the maximum transmission distance. Moreover, we find that intensity fluctuations affect the performance of DO-QKD greatly and the effect on smaller data size is more obvious.

DOI
10.1080/01468030.2020.1814907

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High-dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) can higher the secret-key capacity and tolerate more errors. Several HD-QKD experiments have been demonstrated over deployed fibers to show promising future toward high-dimensional quantum communication networks. However, the practical security of HD-QKD systems should be widely considered before large-scale application of HD-QKD systems. In this paper, we focus on the HD-QKD based on the dispersive optics (DO-QKD) with both statistical and intensity fluctuations. For the condition only with statistical fluctuations, we present the parameter estimation based on an improved Chernoff bound. When considering the condition with both statistical and intensity fluctuations, we present the parameter estimation based on Azuma’s inequality. By numerical simulations, we find that the parameter estimation for DO-QKD based on the improved Chernoff bound is tighter than the previous work in terms of the secret-key capacity and the maximum transmission distance. Moreover, we find that intensity fluctuations affect the performance of DO-QKD greatly and the effect on smaller data size is more obvious.
Abstract High-dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) can increase photon information efficiency and be robust to noise. Several HD-QKD experiments have been demonstrated to verify the above appealing features. However, device imperfections, which have great impacts on the security of HD-QKD system, have not been widely discussed. In this paper, we mainly investigate the finite-key analysis against coherent attacks for HD-QKD without and with intensity fluctuations. For the case without intensity fluctuations, we present the parameter estimation based on the Chernoff bound and the improved Chernoff bound. When considering the case with intensity fluctuations, we present the finite-key analysis based on Azuma’s inequality. By numerical simulations, we find that the performance of HD-QKD for the finite-key scenario based on the improved Chernoff bound is tighter than those based on the Chernoff bound or Hoeffding’s inequality in terms of the secret-key rate and the maximum transmission distance. Moreover, we find that intensity fluctuations affect the performance of HD-QKD greatly and the effect for short running time of transmission is more obvious.
High-dimensional quantum states key distribution (HD-QKD) can enable more than one bit per photon and tolerate more noise. Recently, a practical HD-QKD system based on time-phase states has provided a secret key at Mbps over metropolitan distances. For the purposes of further improving the secret key rate of a practical HD-QKD system, we make two main contributions in this work. Firstly, we present an improved parameter estimation for this system in the finite-key scenario based on the Chernoff bound and the improved Chernoff bound. Secondly, we analyze how the dimension d affects the performance of the practical HD-QKD system. We present numerical simulations about the secret key rate of the practical HD-QKD system based on different parameter estimation methods. It is found that using the improved Chernoff bound can improve the secret key rate and maximum channel loss of the practical HD-QKD system. In addition, a mixture of the 4-level and 8-level practical HD-QKD system can provide better performance in terms of the key generation rate over metropolitan distances .
Quantum key distribution (QKD) has attracted much attention due to its unconditional security. High-dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) is a brand-new type of QKD protocol that has many excellent advantages. Nonetheless, practical imperfections in realistic devices that are not considered in the theoretical security proof may have an impact on the practical security of realistic HD-QKD systems. In this paper, we research the influence of a realistic intensity modulator on the practical security of HD-QKD systems with the decoy-state method and finite-key effects. We demonstrate that there is a certain impact in the secret key rate and the transmission distance when taking practical factors into security analysis.
High-dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) provides notable advantages over qubit-based QKD, including higher key rates and greater noise resilience. Leveraging the orbital angular momentum states of structured photons to encode information has become a prominent method for implementing HD-QKD. However, practical challenges such as state-dependent diffraction, limited receiving aperture, and atmospheric turbulence impose constraints on the attainable performance and encoding dimension of QKD in free-space links. In this work, we address these challenges with focused, structured photons. Numerical simulations indicate that this method markedly enhances transmission efficiency and improves the robustness against turbulence, resulting in higher key rates and extended transmission distances in free-space HD-QKD. Additionally, focused, structured photons allow us to implement higher-dimensional QKD and enable QKD systems to achieve superior performance with smaller receiving apertures in a turbulent free-space link. This makes our approach particularly advantageous for applications of unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite platforms. Our work contributes to exploring the robust QKD schemes employing structured photons and may promote its application in quantum networks.
The decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol has been widely used in commercial QKD systems. Several QKD field networks show its practicability and commercial prospects. Importantly, practical decoy-state QKD systems should be characterized with device imperfections. In this paper, for the case without intensity fluctuations, we present the parameter estimation based on the Chernoff bound for a practical decoy-state QKD protocol and compare performances of that based on Hoeffding's inequality and the Chernoff bound, respectively. Taking intensity fluctuations into consideration, we present the finite-key analysis with composable security against general attacks based on Azuma's inequality. Our numerical results show that the finite-key analysis based on the Chernoff bound is tighter than Hoeffding's inequality when the total number of transmitting signals $N<1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{12}$. Moreover, the intensity fluctuations' influence is more obvious when the data size of total transmitting signals is small. Our results emphasize the importance of the stability of the intensity modulator as well as the accurate estimation of emitted pulse's intensity.
Time-energy high-dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) leverages the high-dimensional nature of time-energy entangled biphotons and the loss tolerance of single-photon detection to achieve long-distance key distribution with high photon information efficiency. To date, the general-attack security of HD-QKD has only been proven in the asymptotic regime, while HD-QKD's finite-key security has only been established for a limited set of attacks. Here we fill this gap by providing a rigorous HD-QKD security proof for general attacks in the finite-key regime. Our proof relies on an entropic uncertainty relation that we derive for time and conjugate-time measurements that use dispersive optics, and our analysis includes an efficient decoy-state protocol in its parameter estimation. We present numerically evaluated secret-key rates illustrating the feasibility of secure and composable HD-QKD over metropolitan-area distances when the system is subjected to the most powerful eavesdropping attack.