We investigate the exploitation of various combinatorial properties of graphs and set systems to study several issues in quantum information theory. We characterize the combinatorics of distributed EPR pairs for preparing multi-partite entanglement in a real communication network. This combinatorics helps in the study of various problems in multi-party case by just reducing to the two-party case. Particularly, we use this combinatorics to (1) study various possible and impossible transformations of multi-partite states under LOCC, thus presenting an entirely new approach, not based on entropic criterion, to study such state transformations. (2) present a protocol and proof of its unconditional security for quantum key distribution amongst several trusted parties. (3) propose an idea to combine the features of quantum key distribution and quantum secret sharing. We investigate all the above issues in great detail and finally conclude briefly with some open research directions based on our research.
We investigate the exploitation of various combinatorial properties of graphs and set systems to study several issues in quantum information theory. We characterize the combinatorics of distributed EPR pairs for preparing multi-partite entanglement in a real communication network. This combinatorics helps in the study of various problems in multi-party case by just reducing to the two-party case. Particularly, we use this combinatorics to (1) study various possible and impossible transformations of multi-partite states under LOCC, thus presenting an entirely new approach, not based on entropic criterion, to study such state transformations. (2) present a protocol and proof of its unconditional security for quantum key distribution amongst several trusted parties. (3) propose an idea to combine the features of quantum key distribution and quantum secret sharing. We investigate all the above issues in great detail and finally conclude briefly with some open research directions based on our research.
We develop protocols for preparing a GHZ state and, in general,a pure multi-partite maximally entangled state in a distributed network with apriori quantum entanglement between agents using classical communication and local operations. We investigate and characterize the minimal combinatorics of the sharing of EPR pairs required amongst agents in a network for the creation of multi-partite entanglement. We also characterize the minimal combinatorics of agents in the creation of pure maximal multi-partite entanglement amongst the set N of n agents in a network using apriori multi-partite entanglement states amongst subsets of N. We propose protocols for establishing multi-partite entanglement in the above cases.
Computations in a distributed environment comprising a network of spatially separated nodes may require the exchange of classical and quantum information. The amount of classical communication may be reduced in such computations by using multipartite entanglement. Following the combinatorial approach developed in [25, 27], we study entanglement configurations over a set of nodes, where each entanglement configuration is a collection of multipartite entanglement (CAT or GHZ) states shared within different combinations of subsets of nodes. The main problem is to determine whether LOCC transformations can generate an entanglement configuration B from another entanglement configuration A, written as B < LOCC A. We characterize the resulting partial order introduced on unitarily equivalent classes of entanglement configurations due to LOCC transformations. This study includes the communication complexity of generating higher cardinality multipartite CAT states from smaller sized CAT state configurations. We also study classes of incomparable entanglement configurations where no pair (A, B) of configurations satisfies A < LOCC B. This leads us to investigate certain combinatorial properties of hypergraphs and hypertrees following initial results in [25, 27]. We study the unique reconstruction of vertex labelled r‐uniform hypertrees on n vertices, where r ⩽ n is a constant, and each hyperedge has the same number r, of vertices. We conclude by discussing several problems and open questions in the context of entanglement configurations.
We develop graph theoretic methods for analysing maximally entangled pure states distributed between a number of different parties. We introduce a technique called {\it bicolored merging}, based on the monotonicity feature of entanglement measures, for determining combinatorial conditions that must be satisfied for any two distinct multiparticle states to be comparable under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We present several results based on the possibility or impossibility of comparability of pure multipartite states. We show that there are exponentially many such entangled multipartite states among n agents. Further, we discuss a new graph theoretic metric on a class of multi-partite states, and its implications.
The security of classical cryptography based on computational complexity assumptions has been severely challenged with the rapid development of quantum computers and quantum algorithms. Quantum cryptography, which offers unconditional security based on some principles of quantum mechanics, has become a significant branch and hotspot in the field of modern cryptography research. In this paper, we review the research and development of several important and well-studied branches of quantum cryptography in terms of theory and experiment, including quantum key distribution, quantum secret sharing, quantum secure direct communication, quantum signature, and quantum private query. We also briefly review the research and development of some other branches which are currently in the stage of theoretical research but receive widespread concern from academia, including quantum private comparison, quantum anonymous voting, quantum secure multi-party summation, quantum sealed-bid auction, quantum public key cryptosystem, quantum key agreement, quantum dialogue, and quantum identity authentication. In addition, we discuss some open issues and future research directions for the branches referred to above.
Entanglement is one of the fundamental features of quantum information science.\nThough bipartite entanglement has been analyzed thoroughly in theory and shown to\nbe an important resource in quantum computation and communication protocols, the\ntheory of entanglement shared between more than two parties, which is called multipartite\nentanglement, is still not complete. Specifically, the classification of multipartite\nentanglement and the transformation property between different multipartite states by\nlocal operators and classical communications (LOCC) are two fundamental questions in\nthe theory of multipartite entanglement.\nIn this thesis, we present results related to the LOCC transformation between multipartite\nentangled states. Firstly, we investigate the bounds on the LOCC transformation\nprobability between multipartite states, especially the GHZ class states. By analyzing\nthe involvement of 3-tangle and other entanglement measures under weak two-outcome\nmeasurement, we derive explicit upper and lower bound on the transformation probability\nbetween GHZ class states. After that, we also analyze the transformation between\nN-party W type states, which is a special class of multipartite entangled states that\nhas an explicit unique expression and a set of analytical entanglement monotones. We\npresent a necessary and sufficient condition for a known upper bound of transformation\nprobability between two N-party W type states to be achieved.\nWe also further investigate a novel entanglement transformation protocol, the random\ndistillation, which transforms multipartite entanglement into bipartite entanglement\nii\nshared by a non-deterministic pair of parties. We find upper bounds for the random distillation\nprotocol for general N-party W type states and find the condition for the upper\nbounds to be achieved. What is surprising is that the upper bounds correspond to entanglement\nmonotones that can be increased by Separable Operators (SEP), which gives\nthe first set of analytical entanglement monotones that can be increased by SEP.\nFinally, we investigate the idea of a new class of multipartite entangled states, the\nAbsolutely Maximal Entangled (AME) states, which is characterized by the fact that\nany bipartition of the states would give a maximal entangled state between the two sets.\nThe relationship between AME states and Quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols is\nexhibited and the application of AME states in novel quantum communication protocols\nis also explored.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) refers to specific quantum strategies which permit the secure distribution of a secret key between two parties that wish to communicate secretly. Quantum cryptography has proven unconditionally secure in ideal scenarios and has been successfully implemented using quantum states with finite (discrete) as well as infinite (continuous) degrees of freedom. Here, we analyze the efficiency of QKD protocols that use as a resource entangled gaussian states and gaussian operations only. In this framework, it has already been shown that QKD is possible [1] but the issue of its efficiency has not been considered. We propose a figure of merit (the efficiency E) to quantify the number of classical correlated bits that can be used to distill a key from a sample of N entangled states. We relate the efficiency of the protocol to the entanglement and purity of the states shared between the parties.