19,966 research outputs found
Phase-Remapping Attack in Practical Quantum Key Distribution Systems
Quantum key distribution (QKD) can be used to generate secret keys between
two distant parties. Even though QKD has been proven unconditionally secure
against eavesdroppers with unlimited computation power, practical
implementations of QKD may contain loopholes that may lead to the generated
secret keys being compromised. In this paper, we propose a phase-remapping
attack targeting two practical bidirectional QKD systems (the "plug & play"
system and the Sagnac system). We showed that if the users of the systems are
unaware of our attack, the final key shared between them can be compromised in
some situations. Specifically, we showed that, in the case of the
Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) protocol with ideal single-photon sources, when
the quantum bit error rate (QBER) is between 14.6% and 20%, our attack renders
the final key insecure, whereas the same range of QBER values has been proved
secure if the two users are unaware of our attack; also, we demonstrated three
situations with realistic devices where positive key rates are obtained without
the consideration of Trojan horse attacks but in fact no key can be distilled.
We remark that our attack is feasible with only current technology. Therefore,
it is very important to be aware of our attack in order to ensure absolute
security. In finding our attack, we minimize the QBER over individual
measurements described by a general POVM, which has some similarity with the
standard quantum state discrimination problem.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
Experimental demonstration of phase-remapping attack in a practical quantum key distribution system
Unconditional security proofs of various quantum key distribution (QKD)
protocols are built on idealized assumptions. One key assumption is: the sender
(Alice) can prepare the required quantum states without errors. However, such
an assumption may be violated in a practical QKD system. In this paper, we
experimentally demonstrate a technically feasible "intercept-and-resend" attack
that exploits such a security loophole in a commercial "plug & play" QKD
system. The resulting quantum bit error rate is 19.7%, which is below the
proven secure bound of 20.0% for the BB84 protocol. The attack we utilize is
the phase-remapping attack (C.-H. F. Fung, et al., Phys. Rev. A, 75, 32314,
2007) proposed by our group.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure
Criterion for bosonic superfluidity in an optical lattice
We show that the current method of determining superfluidity in optical
lattices based on a visibly sharp bosonic momentum distribution
can be misleading, for even a normal Bose gas can have a similarly sharp
. We show that superfluidity in a homogeneous system can be
detected from the so-called visibility of that must
be 1 within , where is the number of bosons. We also show that
the T=0 visibility of trapped lattice bosons is far higher than what is
obtained in some current experiments, suggesting strong temperature effects and
that these states can be normal. These normal states allow one to explore the
physics in the quantum critical region.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; published versio
Non-Abelian Josephson effect between two spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in double optical traps
We investigate the non-Abelian Josephson effect in spinor Bose-Einstein
condensates with double optical traps. We propose, for the first time, a real
physical system which contains non-Abelian Josephson effects. The collective
modes of this weak coupling system have very different density and spin
tunneling characters comparing to the Abelian case. We calculate the
frequencies of the pseudo Goldstone modes in different phases between two traps
respectively, which are a crucial feature of the non-Abelian Josephson effects.
We also give an experimental protocol to observe this novel effect in future
experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Adiposity and weight change in mid-life in relation to healthy survival after age 70 in women: prospective cohort study
Objective: To examine the hypothesis that mid-life adiposity is associated with a reduced probability of maintaining an optimal health status among those who survive to older ages.
Design: Prospective cohort study.
Setting: The Nurses’ Health Study, United States.
Participants: 17 065 women who survived until at least the age of 70, provided information on occurrence of chronic disease, cognitive function, physical function, and mental health at older ages, and were free from major chronic diseases at mid-life (mean age was 50 at baseline in 1976).
Main outcome measures: Healthy survival to age 70 and over was defined as having no history of 11 major chronic diseases and having no substantial cognitive, physical, or mental limitations.
Results: Of the women who survived until at least age 70, 1686 (9.9%) met our criteria for healthy survival. Increased body mass index (BMI) at baseline was significantly associated with linearly reduced odds of healthy survival compared with usual survival, after adjustment for various lifestyle and dietary variables (P<0.001 for trend). Compared with lean women (BMI 18.5-22.9), obese women (BMI ≥30) had 79% lower odds of healthy survival (odds ratio 0.21, 95% confidence interval 0.15 to 0.29). In addition, the more weight gained from age 18 until mid-life, the less likely was healthy survival after the age of 70. The lowest odds of healthy survival were among women who were overweight (BMI ≥25) at age 18 and gained ≥10 kg weight (0.18, 0.09 to 0.36), relative to women who were lean (BMI 18.5-22.9) and maintained a stable weight.
Conclusions: These data provide evidence that adiposity in mid-life is strongly related to a reduced probability of healthy survival among women who live to older ages, and emphasise the importance of maintaining a healthy weight from early adulthood
A balanced homodyne detector for high-rate Gaussian-modulated coherent-state quantum key distribution
We discuss excess noise contributions of a practical balanced homodyne
detector in Gaussian-modulated coherent-state (GMCS) quantum key distribution
(QKD). We point out the key generated from the original realistic model of GMCS
QKD may not be secure. In our refined realistic model, we take into account
excess noise due to the finite bandwidth of the homodyne detector and the
fluctuation of the local oscillator. A high speed balanced homodyne detector
suitable for GMCS QKD in the telecommunication wavelength region is built and
experimentally tested. The 3dB bandwidth of the balanced homodyne detector is
found to be 104MHz and its electronic noise level is 13dB below the shot noise
at a local oscillator level of 8.5*10^8 photon per pulse. The secure key rate
of a GMCS QKD experiment with this homodyne detector is expected to reach
Mbits/s over a few kilometers.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure
Spin-orbit tuned metal-insulator transitions in single-crystal Sr2Ir1-xRhxO4 (0\leqx\leq1)
Sr2IrO4 is a magnetic insulator driven by spin-orbit interaction (SOI)
whereas the isoelectronic and isostructural Sr2RhO4 is a paramagnetic metal.
The contrasting ground states have been shown to result from the critical role
of the strong SOI in the iridate. Our investigation of structural, transport,
magnetic and thermal properties reveals that substituting 4d Rh4+ (4d5) ions
for 5d Ir4+(5d5) ions in Sr2IrO4 directly reduces the SOI and rebalances the
competing energies so profoundly that it generates a rich phase diagram for
Sr2Ir1-xRhxO4 featuring two major effects: (1) Light Rh doping (0\leqx\leq0.16)
prompts a simultaneous and precipitous drop in both the electrical resistivity
and the magnetic ordering temperature TC, which is suppressed to zero at x =
0.16 from 240 K at x=0. (2) However, with heavier Rh doping (0.24< x<0.85
(\pm0.05)) disorder scattering leads to localized states and a return to an
insulating state with spin frustration and exotic magnetic behavior that only
disappears near x=1. The intricacy of Sr2Ir1-xRhxO4 is further highlighted by
comparison with Sr2Ir1-xRuxO4 where Ru4+(4d4) drives a direct crossover from
the insulating to metallic states.Comment: 5 figure
Alternative schemes for measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution
Practical schemes for measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution
using phase and path or time encoding are presented. In addition to immunity to
existing loopholes in detection systems, our setup employs simple encoding and
decoding modules without relying on polarization maintenance or optical
switches. Moreover, by employing a modified sifting technique to handle the
dead-time limitations in single-photon detectors, our scheme can be run with
only two single-photon detectors. With a phase-postselection technique, a
decoy-state variant of our scheme is also proposed, whose key generation rate
scales linearly with the channel transmittance.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figure
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