848 research outputs found
Continuous Variable Quantum Cryptography using Two-Way Quantum Communication
Quantum cryptography has been recently extended to continuous variable
systems, e.g., the bosonic modes of the electromagnetic field. In particular,
several cryptographic protocols have been proposed and experimentally
implemented using bosonic modes with Gaussian statistics. Such protocols have
shown the possibility of reaching very high secret-key rates, even in the
presence of strong losses in the quantum communication channel. Despite this
robustness to loss, their security can be affected by more general attacks
where extra Gaussian noise is introduced by the eavesdropper. In this general
scenario we show a "hardware solution" for enhancing the security thresholds of
these protocols. This is possible by extending them to a two-way quantum
communication where subsequent uses of the quantum channel are suitably
combined. In the resulting two-way schemes, one of the honest parties assists
the secret encoding of the other with the chance of a non-trivial superadditive
enhancement of the security thresholds. Such results enable the extension of
quantum cryptography to more complex quantum communications.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, REVTe
Multipartite Continuous Variable Solution for the Byzantine Agreement Problem
We demonstrate that the Byzantine Agreement (detectable broadcast) is also
solvable in the continuous-variable scenario with multipartite entangled
Gaussian states and Gaussian operations (homodyne detection). Within this
scheme we find that Byzantine Agreement requires a minimum amount of
entanglement in the multipartite states used in order to achieve a solution. We
discuss realistic implementations of the protocol, which consider the
possibility of having inefficient homodyne detectors, not perfectly correlated
outcomes, and noise in the preparation of the resource states. The proposed
protocol is proven to be robust and efficiently applicable under such non-ideal
conditions.Comment: This paper supersedes and extends arXiv:quant-ph/0507249, title
changed to match the published version, 11 pages, 3 figures, published
versio
Photon-Number-Splitting versus Cloning Attacks in Practical Implementations of the Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol for Quantum Cryptography
In practical quantum cryptography, the source sometimes produces multi-photon
pulses, thus enabling the eavesdropper Eve to perform the powerful
photon-number-splitting (PNS) attack. Recently, it was shown by Curty and
Lutkenhaus [Phys. Rev. A 69, 042321 (2004)] that the PNS attack is not always
the optimal attack when two photons are present: if errors are present in the
correlations Alice-Bob and if Eve cannot modify Bob's detection efficiency, Eve
gains a larger amount of information using another attack based on a 2->3
cloning machine. In this work, we extend this analysis to all distances
Alice-Bob. We identify a new incoherent 2->3 cloning attack which performs
better than those described before. Using it, we confirm that, in the presence
of errors, Eve's better strategy uses 2->3 cloning attacks instead of the PNS.
However, this improvement is very small for the implementations of the
Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) protocol. Thus, the existence of these new attacks
is conceptually interesting but basically does not change the value of the
security parameters of BB84. The main results are valid both for Poissonian and
sub-Poissonian sources.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures; "intuitive" formula (31) adde
Security of coherent state quantum cryptography in the presence of Gaussian noise
We investigate the security against collective attacks of a continuous
variable quantum key distribution scheme in the asymptotic key limit for a
realistic setting. The quantum channel connecting the two honest parties is
assumed to be lossy and imposes Gaussian noise on the observed quadrature
distributions. Secret key rates are given for direct and reverse reconciliation
schemes including postselection in the collective attack scenario. The effect
of a non-ideal error correction and two-way communication in the classical
post-processing step is also taken into account.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures updated version including two-way communication;
changed the definition of the excess noise to match the definition given
earlier (Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 117901); submitted to PRA; presented at the 8th
International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing,
Tsukub
Security of a new two-way continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocol
The original two-way continuous-variable quantum-key-distribution (CV QKD)
protocols [S. Pirandola, S. Mancini, S. Lloyd, and S. L. Braunstein, Nature
Physics 4, 726 (2008)] give the security against the collective attack on the
condition of the tomography of the quantum channels. We propose a family of new
two-way CV QKD protocols and prove their security against collective entangling
cloner attacks without the tomography of the quantum channels. The simulation
result indicates that the new protocols maintain the same advantage as the
original two-way protocols whose tolerable excess noise surpasses that of the
one-way CV-QKD protocol. We also show that all sub-protocols within the family
have higher secret key rate and much longer transmission distance than the
one-way CV-QKD protocol for the noisy channel.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in International
Journal of Quantum Informatio
Continuous variable quantum key distribution with two-mode squeezed states
Quantum key distribution (QKD) enables two remote parties to grow a shared
key which they can use for unconditionally secure communication [1]. The
applicable distance of a QKD protocol depends on the loss and the excess noise
of the connecting quantum channel [2-10]. Several QKD schemes based on coherent
states and continuous variable (CV) measurements are resilient to high loss in
the channel, but strongly affected by small amounts of channel excess noise
[2-6]. Here we propose and experimentally address a CV QKD protocol which uses
fragile squeezed states combined with a large coherent modulation to greatly
enhance the robustness to channel noise. As a proof of principle we
experimentally demonstrate that the resulting QKD protocol can tolerate more
noise than the benchmark set by the ideal CV coherent state protocol. Our
scheme represents a very promising avenue for extending the distance for which
secure communication is possible.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Quantum key distribution using gaussian-modulated coherent states
Quantum continuous variables are being explored as an alternative means to
implement quantum key distribution, which is usually based on single photon
counting. The former approach is potentially advantageous because it should
enable higher key distribution rates. Here we propose and experimentally
demonstrate a quantum key distribution protocol based on the transmission of
gaussian-modulated coherent states (consisting of laser pulses containing a few
hundred photons) and shot-noise-limited homodyne detection; squeezed or
entangled beams are not required. Complete secret key extraction is achieved
using a reverse reconciliation technique followed by privacy amplification. The
reverse reconciliation technique is in principle secure for any value of the
line transmission, against gaussian individual attacks based on entanglement
and quantum memories. Our table-top experiment yields a net key transmission
rate of about 1.7 megabits per second for a loss-free line, and 75 kilobits per
second for a line with losses of 3.1 dB. We anticipate that the scheme should
remain effective for lines with higher losses, particularly because the present
limitations are essentially technical, so that significant margin for
improvement is available on both the hardware and software.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Continuous variable quantum cryptography using coherent states
We propose several methods for quantum key distribution (QKD) based upon the
generation and transmission of random distributions of coherent or squeezed
states, and we show that they are are secure against individual eavesdropping
attacks. These protocols require that the transmission of the optical line
between Alice and Bob is larger than 50 %, but they do not rely on
"non-classical" features such as squeezing. Their security is a direct
consequence of the no-cloning theorem, that limits the signal to noise ratio of
possible quantum measurements on the transmission line. Our approach can also
be used for evaluating various QKD protocols using light with gaussian
statistics.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. In v2 minor rewriting for clarity, references
adde
Finite Schur filtration dimension for modules over an algebra with Schur filtration
Let G be GL_N or SL_N as reductive linear algebraic group over a field k of
positive characteristic p. We prove several results that were previously
established only when N 2^N. Let G act rationally on a finitely
generated commutative k-algebra A. Assume that A as a G-module has a good
filtration or a Schur filtration. Let M be a noetherian A-module with
compatible G action. Then M has finite good/Schur filtration dimension, so that
there are at most finitely many nonzero H^i(G,M). Moreover these H^i(G,M) are
noetherian modules over the ring of invariants A^G. Our main tool is a
resolution involving Schur functors of the ideal of the diagonal in a product
of Grassmannians.Comment: 22 pages; final versio
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