How different are shadows of compact objects with and without horizons?

In this work, we theoretically assume that a compact object (CO) can have a dark surface so that the CO is simplified to have no emissions and reflections. Considering that the radius of the surface can be located inside or outside the photon region, which is closely related to the shadow curve, we investigate if a CO without an event horizon could produce shadow structures similar to black holes and figure out how different of shadows of COs with and without horizons. In particular, by introducing the (possible) observational photon region, we analytically construct an exact correspondence between the shadow curves with the impact parameters of photons and find that there are indeed several differences for shadows of COs without horizons and black holes. More precisely, We found the shadow curve is still determined by the photon region when the radius of the surface is small enough to retain a whole photon region outside the shell. When only part of the photon region remains, the shadow curve is partially determined by the photon region, and the remaining portion of the shadow curve is partly controlled by the impact parameters of photons which has a turning point on the surface. When there's no photon region outside the surface, the shadow curve is totally controlled by the impact parameters of photons which has a turning point on the surface.Comment: 19 pages,5 figure

Finite-size analysis of continuous-variable measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution

We study the impact of the finite-size effect on the continuous-variable measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (CV-MDI QKD) protocol, mainly considering the finite-size effect on the parameter estimation procedure. The central-limit theorem and maximum likelihood estimation theorem are used to estimate the parameters. We also analyze the relationship between the number of exchanged signals and the optimal modulation variance in the protocol. It is proved that when Charlie's position is close to Bob, the CV-MDI QKD protocol has the farthest transmission distance in the finite-size scenario. Finally, we discuss the impact of finite-size effects related to the practical detection in the CV-MDI QKD protocol. The overall results indicate that the finite-size effect has a great influence on the secret key rate of the CV-MDI QKD protocol and should not be ignored.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure