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Physica Scripta

Plug-and-play four-state modulation continuous-variable quantum key distribution

Jian Zhou, Hui Li, Yanyan Feng, Ronghua Shi, Jinjing Shi

Published Aug 27, 2024• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, a novel and highly efficient secure communication scheme is proposed through the integration of four-state modulation quantum key distribution and plug-and-play technology. This scheme serves the purpose of transmitting information reliably while preserving data confidentiality between two communicating parties. The most important advantage of the proposed continuous-variable QKD system is that the birefringence effect in fiber can be compensated automatically. Notably, simulation experimental evaluations are conducted, unveiling the performance of the plug-and-play four-state QKD which is as good as the four-state protocol when having small Rayleigh scattering noise. Furthermore, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of potential security threats targeted at the proposed protocol, thereby substantiating its robustness against such attacks. Moreover, theoretical justifications are provided to validate the security of the proposed scheme.

DOI
10.1088/1402-4896/ad7415

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Abstract In this paper, a novel and highly efficient secure communication scheme is proposed through the integration of four-state modulation quantum key distribution and plug-and-play technology. This scheme serves the purpose of transmitting information reliably while preserving data confidentiality between two communicating parties. The most important advantage of the proposed continuous-variable QKD system is that the birefringence effect in fiber can be compensated automatically. Notably, simulation experimental evaluations are conducted, unveiling the performance of the plug-and-play four-state QKD which is as good as the four-state protocol when having small Rayleigh scattering noise. Furthermore, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of potential security threats targeted at the proposed protocol, thereby substantiating its robustness against such attacks. Moreover, theoretical justifications are provided to validate the security of the proposed scheme.
Plug-and-play discrete modulation continuous variable quantum key distribution can generate local oscillator light locally without using two independent lasers, and both signal light and local oscillator are generated from the same laser, which can effectively ensure the practical security of the system and have a completely identical frequency characteristic. In addition, this scheme has good compatibility with efficient error correction codes, and can achieve high reconciliation efficiency even at low signal-to-noise ratio. However, there exists large excess noise in the plug-and-play configuration based on the untrusted source model, which seriously limits the maximum transmission distance of the discrete modulation scheme. To solve this problem, we propose a plug-and-play discrete modulation continuous variable quantum key distribution based on non-Gaussian state-discrimination detection. That is to say, a non-Gaussian state-discrimination detector is deployed at the receiver. With adaptive measurement method and Bayesian inference, four non-orthogonal coherent states which are based on four-state discrete modulation can be unconditionally distinguished on condition that the error probability is lower than the standard quantum limit. We analyze the security of the proposed protocol by considering both asymptotic limit and finite-size effect. Simulation results show that the secret key rate and maximum transmission distance are significantly enhanced by using no-Gaussian state-discrimination detection even under the influence of the untrusted source noise compared with the original plug-and-play discrete modulation continuous variable quantum key distribution. These results indicate that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the negative influence of the untrust source noise on the performance of the plug-and-play discrete modulation continuous variable quantum key distribution protocol. The proposed protocol can not only ensure the practical security of the system, but also achieve more efficient and longer transmission distance quantum key distribution.
Abstract Robust, simple, and flexible quantum key distribution (QKD) is vital for realizing practical applications of this technique. Contrary to typical phase-coded QKD schemes, the plug-and-play QKD design requires only one arm-length-insensitive interferometer without active feedback, in which the noise is automatically compensated by the two-way structure. However, there are certain possible loopholes in the typical plug-and-play designs, which require consideration and strict monitoring. This study proposes a new design of theoretically loophole-free plug-and-play QKD scheme with two-way protocol and presents an experimental demonstration of said scheme. The security is analyzed under a collective attack scenario assisted by the decoy state method. The scheme was implemented in a 50.4 km commercial fibre without active feedback. The system showed highly robust performance with an ultra-low error rate and maintained an ultra-high visibility of 0.9947 ± 0.0002 through significant environmental changes over 24 hours.
Robust, simple, and flexible quantum key distribution (QKD) is vital for realising practical applications of this technique. Contrary to typical phase-coded QKD schemes, the plug-and-play QKD design requires only one arm-length-insensitive interferometer without active feedback, in which the noise is automatically compensated by the two-way structure. However, there are certain possible loopholes in the typical plug-and-play designs, which require consideration and strict monitoring. This study proposes a new design of plug-and-play QKD based on two-way protocol with enhanced security and presents an experimental demonstration of said scheme. The security is analysed under a collective attack scenario assisted by the decoy state method. The scheme was implemented in a 50.4 km commercial fibre without active feedback. The system showed highly robust performance with an ultra-low error rate and maintained an ultra-high visibility of 0.9947+/-0.0002 through significant environmental changes over 24 hours. We analysis the performance of the system and give a brief discussion of the possible loopholes in practical applications.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) protocol using dual-phase-modulated coherent states. We show that the modulation scheme of our protocol works equivalently to that of the Gaussian-modulated coherent-states (GMCS) protocol, but shows better experimental feasibility in the plug-and-play configuration. Besides, it waives the necessity of propagation of a local oscillator (LO) between legitimate users and generates a real local LO for quantum measurement. Our protocol is proposed independent of the one-way GMCS QKD without sending a LO [Opt. Lett. 40, 3695 (2015); Phys. Rev. X 5, 041009 (2015); Phys. Rev. X 5, 041010 (2015)]. In those recent works, the system stability will suffer the impact of polarization drifts induced by environmental perturbations, and two independent frequency-locked laser sources are necessary to achieve reliable coherent detection. In the proposed protocol, these previous problems can be resolved. We derive the security bounds for our protocol against collective attacks, and we also perform a proof-of-principle experiment to confirm the utility of our proposal in real-life applications. Such an efficient scheme provides a way of removing the security loopholes associated with the transmitting LO, which have been a notoriously hard problem in continuous-variable quantum communication.
We report a plug-and-play continuous variable quantum key distribution system (CV-QKD) with Gaussian modulated quadratures and a true local oscillator. The proposed configuration avoids the need for frequency locking two narrow line-width lasers. To minimize Rayleigh back-scattering, we utilize two independent fiber strands for the distribution of the laser and the transmission of the quantum signals. We further demonstrate the quantum-classical co-existing capability of our system by injecting high-power classical light in both fibers. A secret key rate up to 0.88 Mb/s is obtained by using two fiber links of 13 km and up to 0.3 Mb/s when adding 4 mW of classical light in the optical fiber used for transmitting the quantum signal. The reported performance indicates that the proposed QKD scheme has the potential to become an effective low-cost solution for metropolitan optical networks.
Subject of study. Two-way continuous-variable quantum key distribution schemes are studied. Aim. This study aims to prove the security of the plug-and-play continuous-variable quantum key distribution system in the context of the model of trusted noise from legitimate users. Method. Based on an analog of the well-known implementation in the plug-and-play format, the performance of such a system operating under the GG02 protocol is evaluated. The evaluation is conducted in the presence of collective attacks, considering the finite-key effects. Main results. A secure key that satisfies the composability criteria can be distributed with a channel loss of 5 dB, which is expected to be approximately half that in a one-way scheme. Practical significance. Two-way quantum key distribution schemes are more stable than one-way schemes, and hence, their stability requires detailed consideration. This paper is the first, to our knowledge, to propose considering the security of a two-way implementation of continuous-variable quantum key distribution, considering the trusted equipment noise.