Robust and Efficient Sifting-Less Quantum Key Distribution Protocols

Abstract

We show that replacing the usual sifting step of the standard quantum-key-distribution protocol BB84 by a one-way reverse reconciliation procedure increases its robustness against photon-number-splitting (PNS) attacks to the level of the SARG04 protocol while keeping the raw key-rate of BB84. This protocol, which uses the same state and detection than BB84, is the m=4 member of a protocol-family using m polarization states which we introduce here. We show that the robustness of these protocols against PNS attacks increases exponentially with m, and that the effective keyrate of optimized weak coherent pulses decreases with the transmission T like T^{1+1/(m-2)}.

References in corpus (4)

• The Security of Practical Quantum Key Distribution
• Hacking commercial quantum cryptography systems by tailored bright illumination
• Unconditional security proof of long-distance continuous-variable quantum key distribution with discrete modulation
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Multi-Photon Quantum Key Distribution Based on Double-Lock Encryption
• Localization-based two-photon wave-function information encoding
• Introduction to quantum information theory and outline of two applications to physics: the black hole information paradox and the renormalization group information flow