Quantum secret sharing based on quantum information masking

Ben Fortescue, Gilad Gour

Zhi-Feng Liu, Wei-Min Shang, Jia-Min Xu +13 more

Quantum information masking (QIM) allows encoding quantum information in multipartite systems. Complete QIM is of great significance in quantum foundation and application. However, the realization of complete QIM, even for single-qubit encoded information, is still lacking. Here, we propose to demonstrate complete QIM with 4-qubit entangled states. The proposed QIM can be readily extended to multipartite systems with arbitrary number of subsystems, enabling quantum secret sharing (QSS) and quantum teleportation between multiplayers. In experiment, we build up a 4-qubit hyperentangled state to implement complete QIM. The trace distance of 16 encoded single-qubit states falls within the range of 0.12 ± 0.02 to 0.03 ± 0.02. Furthermore, we implement QSS between six players by expanding the 4-qubit state to a 6-qubit state entangled in hybrid manner, in which we observe an average fidelity 0.85 ± 0.03 of the recovered states. Our results open the door towards QIM-enabled quantum information processing and provide applications in quantum communications. Quantum information masking allows encoding quantum information in multipartite systems, which is hidden from subsystems and can be recovered from the nonlocal correlation. The authors propose and realize the complete quantum information masking and apply it to quantum secret sharing between six players.

Ken Sasaki, Atsushi Waseda, Masakazu Soshi +1 more

Zhenghao Liu, Xiao-Bin Liang, Kai Sun +8 more

Masking of quantum information spreads it over nonlocal correlations and hides it from the subsystems. It is known that no operation can simultaneously mask all pure states [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 230501 (2018)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.120.230501], so in what sense is quantum information masking useful? Here, we extend the definition of quantum information masking to general mixed states, and show that the resource of maskable quantum states is far more abundant than the no-go theorem seemingly suggests. Geometrically, the simultaneously maskable states lays on hyperdisks in the state hypersphere, and strictly contains the broadcastable states. We devise a photonic quantum information masking machine using time-correlated photons to experimentally investigate the properties of qubit masking, and demonstrate the transfer of quantum information into bipartite correlations and its faithful retrieval. The versatile masking machine has decent extensibility, and may be applicable to quantum secret sharing and fault-tolerant quantum communication. Our results provide some insights on the comprehension and potential application of quantum information masking.

Guo-Ping Guo, Guang-Can Guo

Chen‐Ming Bai, Ya‐Xi Shu, Su-Juan Zhang

In this paper, drawing upon quantum state masking theory, we first propose a method that utilizes d-dimensional orthogonal arrays to encode quantum states into a multi-party quantum system. Building upon this foundation, we then design a quantum secret sharing scheme whose security is rooted in the principles of quantum information masking. This scheme is designed based on the hyperstar structure to define the access structure. Additionally, the protocol enables the transmission of arbitrary d-dimensional quantum states through quantum channels constructed using orthogonal arrays, ensuring that only participants within the access structure can recover the secret. We have thoroughly analyzed the security of this scheme against major quantum attacks, including intercept-resend attacks, entangle-measure attacks, and dishonest participant attack. In conclusion, our analysis examines the impact of four common types of noise on this protocol, confirming its immunity to dit-flip noise. Furthermore, we present a comparative analysis of the proposed scheme against existing quantum secret sharing protocols, highlighting its respective advantages.