Quantum Key Distribution with Imperfect Devices

明博 水谷

Ye Chen, Chunfeng Huang, Zihao Chen +4 more

Quantum key distribution (QKD), guaranteed by the principle of quantum physics, is a promising solution for future secure information and communication technology. However, device imperfections compromise the security of real-life QKD systems, restricting the wide deployment of QKD. This study reports a decoy-state Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) QKD experiment that considers both source and detection imperfections. In particular, we achieve a rigorous finite-key security bound over fiber links of up to 75 km by applying a systematic performance analysis. Furthermore, our study considers more device imperfections than most previous experiments, and the proposed theory can be extended to other discrete-variable QKD systems. These features constitute a crucial step toward securing QKD with imperfect practical devices.

Jerome Wiesemann, John Burniston, Devashish Tupkary +1 more

Practical quantum key distribution (QKD) systems inevitably exhibit imperfections in both the source and detector. At the same time, the behavior of these imperfect devices is never exactly known due to characterization uncertainty, parameter fluctuations, and potential influence by an adversary. In this work, we present a security proof for generic prepare-and-measure QKD protocols, including decoy-state BB84, with imperfect and imperfectly characterized sources and detectors using the marginal-constrained entropy accumulation theorem (MEAT). Our approach uses a sequence of proof technique independent source maps and squashing maps, yielding a very modular framework. We show that practical key rates can be achieved even when multiple imperfections are combined. More broadly, our work provides a unified foundation that avoids the need for dedicated protocol-specific arguments and can be readily extended to other protocols and device imperfections.

Masahiro Takeoka

Norbert Lütkenhaus

Varun Narasimhachar

Quantum key-distribution (QKD) is a scheme for establishing shared secret key between remote parties. In such a scheme, quantum preparation and measurement devices (sources and detectors) are used. In existing theoretical treatments of QKD, the device models used do not capture all the imperfections which might occur in realistic devices. This creates a gap between the practical implementations and theoretical descriptions of QKD. In the present work, we contribute in bridging this gap by three methods: 1) Advancing the study of squashing models of measurement devices, 2) Devising an alternative to squashing models using statistical estimation in optical QKD, and 3) Modifying the security proof formalism of QKD to account for imperfect devices.