49,373 research outputs found
Finite-Block-Length Analysis in Classical and Quantum Information Theory
Coding technology is used in several information processing tasks. In
particular, when noise during transmission disturbs communications, coding
technology is employed to protect the information. However, there are two types
of coding technology: coding in classical information theory and coding in
quantum information theory. Although the physical media used to transmit
information ultimately obey quantum mechanics, we need to choose the type of
coding depending on the kind of information device, classical or quantum, that
is being used. In both branches of information theory, there are many elegant
theoretical results under the ideal assumption that an infinitely large system
is available. In a realistic situation, we need to account for finite size
effects. The present paper reviews finite size effects in classical and quantum
information theory with respect to various topics, including applied aspects
Using quantum key distribution for cryptographic purposes: a survey
The appealing feature of quantum key distribution (QKD), from a cryptographic
viewpoint, is the ability to prove the information-theoretic security (ITS) of
the established keys. As a key establishment primitive, QKD however does not
provide a standalone security service in its own: the secret keys established
by QKD are in general then used by a subsequent cryptographic applications for
which the requirements, the context of use and the security properties can
vary. It is therefore important, in the perspective of integrating QKD in
security infrastructures, to analyze how QKD can be combined with other
cryptographic primitives. The purpose of this survey article, which is mostly
centered on European research results, is to contribute to such an analysis. We
first review and compare the properties of the existing key establishment
techniques, QKD being one of them. We then study more specifically two generic
scenarios related to the practical use of QKD in cryptographic infrastructures:
1) using QKD as a key renewal technique for a symmetric cipher over a
point-to-point link; 2) using QKD in a network containing many users with the
objective of offering any-to-any key establishment service. We discuss the
constraints as well as the potential interest of using QKD in these contexts.
We finally give an overview of challenges relative to the development of QKD
technology that also constitute potential avenues for cryptographic research.Comment: Revised version of the SECOQC White Paper. Published in the special
issue on QKD of TCS, Theoretical Computer Science (2014), pp. 62-8
Error tolerance of two-basis quantum key-distribution protocols using qudits and two-way classical communication
We investigate the error tolerance of quantum cryptographic protocols using
-level systems. In particular, we focus on prepare-and-measure schemes that
use two mutually unbiased bases and a key-distillation procedure with two-way
classical communication. For arbitrary quantum channels, we obtain a sufficient
condition for secret-key distillation which, in the case of isotropic quantum
channels, yields an analytic expression for the maximally tolerable error rate
of the cryptographic protocols under consideration. The difference between the
tolerable error rate and its theoretical upper bound tends slowly to zero for
sufficiently large dimensions of the information carriers.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur
On privacy amplification, lossy compression, and their duality to channel coding
We examine the task of privacy amplification from information-theoretic and
coding-theoretic points of view. In the former, we give a one-shot
characterization of the optimal rate of privacy amplification against classical
adversaries in terms of the optimal type-II error in asymmetric hypothesis
testing. This formulation can be easily computed to give finite-blocklength
bounds and turns out to be equivalent to smooth min-entropy bounds by Renner
and Wolf [Asiacrypt 2005] and Watanabe and Hayashi [ISIT 2013], as well as a
bound in terms of the divergence by Yang, Schaefer, and Poor
[arXiv:1706.03866 [cs.IT]]. In the latter, we show that protocols for privacy
amplification based on linear codes can be easily repurposed for channel
simulation. Combined with known relations between channel simulation and lossy
source coding, this implies that privacy amplification can be understood as a
basic primitive for both channel simulation and lossy compression. Applied to
symmetric channels or lossy compression settings, our construction leads to
proto- cols of optimal rate in the asymptotic i.i.d. limit. Finally, appealing
to the notion of channel duality recently detailed by us in [IEEE Trans. Info.
Theory 64, 577 (2018)], we show that linear error-correcting codes for
symmetric channels with quantum output can be transformed into linear lossy
source coding schemes for classical variables arising from the dual channel.
This explains a "curious duality" in these problems for the (self-dual) erasure
channel observed by Martinian and Yedidia [Allerton 2003; arXiv:cs/0408008] and
partly anticipates recent results on optimal lossy compression by polar and
low-density generator matrix codes.Comment: v3: updated to include equivalence of the converse bound with smooth
entropy formulations. v2: updated to include comparison with the one-shot
bounds of arXiv:1706.03866. v1: 11 pages, 4 figure
Information and communication in polygon theories
Generalized probabilistic theories (GPT) provide a framework in which one can
formulate physical theories that includes classical and quantum theories, but
also many other alternative theories. In order to compare different GPTs, we
advocate an approach in which one views a state in a GPT as a resource, and
quantifies the cost of interconverting between different such resources. We
illustrate this approach on polygon theories (Janotta et al. New J. Phys 13,
063024, 2011) that interpolate (as the number n of edges of the polygon
increases) between a classical trit (when n=3) and a real quantum bit (when
n=infinity). Our main results are that simulating the transmission of a single
n-gon state requires more than one qubit, or more than log(log(n)) bits, and
that n-gon states with n odd cannot be simulated by n'-gon states with n' even
(for all n,n'). These results are obtained by showing that the classical
capacity of a single n-gon state with n even is 1 bit, whereas it is larger
than 1 bit when n is odd; by showing that transmitting a single n-gon state
with n even violates information causality; and by showing studying the
communication complexity cost of the nondeterministic not equal function using
n-gon states.Comment: 18 page
Quantum Communication
Quantum communication, and indeed quantum information in general, has changed
the way we think about quantum physics. In 1984 and 1991, the first protocol
for quantum cryptography and the first application of quantum non-locality,
respectively, attracted a diverse field of researchers in theoretical and
experimental physics, mathematics and computer science. Since then we have seen
a fundamental shift in how we understand information when it is encoded in
quantum systems. We review the current state of research and future directions
in this new field of science with special emphasis on quantum key distribution
and quantum networks.Comment: Submitted version, 8 pg (2 cols) 5 fig
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