Robust Unconditionally Secure Quantum Key Distribution with Two Nonorthogonal and Uninformative States

We introduce a novel form of decoy-state technique to make the single-photon Bennett 1992 protocol robust against losses and noise of a communication channel. Two uninformative states are prepared by the transmitter in order to prevent the unambiguous state discrimination attack and improve the phase-error rate estimation. The presented method does not require strong reference pulses, additional electronics or extra detectors for its implementation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Towards a spin foam model description of black hole entropy

We propose a way to describe the origin of black hole entropy in the spin foam models of quantum gravity. This stimulates a new way to study the relation of spin foam models and loop quantum gravity.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Unconditional Security of Three State Quantum Key Distribution Protocols

Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols are cryptographic techniques with security based only on the laws of quantum mechanics. Two prominent QKD schemes are the BB84 and B92 protocols that use four and two quantum states, respectively. In 2000, Phoenix et al. proposed a new family of three state protocols that offers advantages over the previous schemes. Until now, an error rate threshold for security of the symmetric trine spherical code QKD protocol has only been shown for the trivial intercept/resend eavesdropping strategy. In this paper, we prove the unconditional security of the trine spherical code QKD protocol, demonstrating its security up to a bit error rate of 9.81%. We also discuss on how this proof applies to a version of the trine spherical code QKD protocol where the error rate is evaluated from the number of inconclusive events.Comment: 4 pages, published versio

Unconditionally Secure Key Distribution Based on Two Nonorthogonal States

We prove the unconditional security of the Bennett 1992 protocol, by using a reduction to an entanglement distillation protocol initiated by a local filtering process. The bit errors and the phase errors are correlated after the filtering, and we can bound the amount of phase errors from the observed bit errors by an estimation method involving nonorthogonal measurements. The angle between the two states shows a trade-off between accuracy of the estimation and robustness to noises.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Quantum circuit for security proof of quantum key distribution without encryption of error syndrome and noisy processing

One of the simplest security proofs of quantum key distribution is based on the so-called complementarity scenario, which involves the complementarity control of an actual protocol and a virtual protocol [M. Koashi, e-print arXiv:0704.3661 (2007)]. The existing virtual protocol has a limitation in classical postprocessing, i.e., the syndrome for the error-correction step has to be encrypted. In this paper, we remove this limitation by constructing a quantum circuit for the virtual protocol. Moreover, our circuit with a shield system gives an intuitive proof of why adding noise to the sifted key increases the bit error rate threshold in the general case in which one of the parties does not possess a qubit. Thus, our circuit bridges the simple proof and the use of wider classes of classical postprocessing.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. Typo correcte

Unconditional Security of Single-Photon Differential Phase Shift Quantum Key Distribution

In this Letter, we prove the unconditional security of single-photon differential phase shift quantum key distribution (DPS-QKD) protocol, based on the conversion to an equivalent entanglement-based protocol. We estimate the upper bound of the phase error rate from the bit error rate, and show that DPS-QKD can generate unconditionally secure key when the bit error rate is not greater than 4.12%. This proof is the first step to the unconditional security proof of coherent state DPS-QKD.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; shorten the length, improve clarity, and correct typos; accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Unconditional security of the Bennett 1992 quantum key-distribution scheme with strong reference pulse

We prove the unconditional security of the original Bennett 1992 protocol with strong reference pulse. We show that we may place a projection onto suitably defined qubit spaces before the receiver, which makes the analysis as simple as qubit-based protocols. Unlike the single-photon-based qubits, the qubits identified in this scheme are almost surely detected by the receiver even after a lossy channel. This leads to the key generation rate that is proportional to the channel transmission rate for proper choices of experimental parameters.Comment: More detailed presentation and a bit modified security proo

Generic features of Einstein-Aether black holes

We reconsider spherically symmetric black hole solutions in Einstein-Aether theory with the condition that this theory has identical PPN parameters as those for general relativity, which is the main difference from the previous research. In contrast with previous study, we allow superluminal propagation of a spin-0 Aether-gravity wave mode. As a result, we obtain black holes having a spin-0 "horizon" inside an event horizon. We allow a singularity at a spin-0 "horizon" since it is concealed by the event horizon. If we allow such a configuration, the kinetic term of the Aether field can be large enough for black holes to be significantly different from Schwarzschild black holes with respect to ADM mass, innermost stable circular orbit, Hawking temperature, and so on. We also discuss whether or not the above features can be seen in more generic vector-tensor theories.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, basic equations and their analytic arguments are adde

Deciding Full Branching Time Logic by Program Transformation

We present a method based on logic program transformation, for verifying Computation Tree Logic (CTL*) properties of finite state reactive systems. The finite state systems and the CTL* properties we want to verify, are encoded as logic programs on infinite lists. Our verification method consists of two steps. In the first step we transform the logic program that encodes the given system and the given property, into a monadic ω -program, that is, a stratified program defining nullary or unary predicates on infinite lists. This transformation is performed by applying unfold/fold rules that preserve the perfect model of the initial program. In the second step we verify the property of interest by using a proof method for monadic ω-program