6,685 research outputs found
Unconditional optimality of Gaussian attacks against continuous-variable QKD
A fully general approach to the security analysis of continuous-variable
quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) is presented. Provided that the quantum
channel is estimated via the covariance matrix of the quadratures, Gaussian
attacks are shown to be optimal against all eavesdropping strategies, including
collective and coherent attacks. The proof is made strikingly simple by
combining a physical model of measurement, an entanglement-based description of
CV-QKD, and a recent powerful result on the extremality of Gaussian states
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 080502 (2006)].Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Fundamental rate-loss tradeoff for optical quantum key distribution
Since 1984, various optical quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols have
been proposed and examined. In all of them, the rate of secret key generation
decays exponentially with distance. A natural and fundamental question is then
whether there are yet-to-be discovered optical QKD protocols (without quantum
repeaters) that could circumvent this rate-distance tradeoff. This paper
provides a major step towards answering this question. We show that the
secret-key-agreement capacity of a lossy and noisy optical channel assisted by
unlimited two-way public classical communication is limited by an upper bound
that is solely a function of the channel loss, regardless of how much optical
power the protocol may use. Our result has major implications for understanding
the secret-key-agreement capacity of optical channels---a long-standing open
problem in optical quantum information theory---and strongly suggests a real
need for quantum repeaters to perform QKD at high rates over long distances.Comment: 9+4 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1310.012
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