A diagrammatic categorification of the fermion algebra

In this paper, we study the diagrammatic categorification of the fermion algebra. We construct a graphical category corresponding to the one-dimensional fermion algebra, and we investigate the properties of this category. The categorical analogues of the Fock states are some kind of 1-morphisms in our category, and the dimension of the vector space of 2-morphisms is exactly the inner product of the corresponding Fock states. All the results in our categorical framework coincide exactly with those in normal quantum mechanics.Comment: 10 pages, many TikZ figures. To appear in Chin. Phys.

Source attack of decoy-state quantum key distribution using phase information

Quantum key distribution (QKD) utilizes the laws of quantum mechanics to achieve information-theoretically secure key generation. This field is now approaching the stage of commercialization, but many practical QKD systems still suffer from security loopholes due to imperfect devices. In fact, practical attacks have successfully been demonstrated. Fortunately, most of them only exploit detection-side loopholes which are now closed by the recent idea of measurement-device-independent QKD. On the other hand, little attention is paid to the source which may still leave QKD systems insecure. In this work, we propose and demonstrate an attack that exploits a source-side loophole existing in qubit-based QKD systems using a weak coherent state source and decoy states. Specifically, by implementing a linear-optics unambiguous-state-discrimination measurement, we show that the security of a system without phase randomization --- which is a step assumed in conventional security analyses but sometimes neglected in practice --- can be compromised. We conclude that implementing phase randomization is essential to the security of decoy-state QKD systems under current security analyses.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure