Quantum information and beyond -- with quantum candies

Abstract

The field of quantum information is becoming more known to the general public. However, effectively demonstrating the concepts underneath quantum science and technology to the general public can be a challenging job. We investigate, extend, and greatly expand here "quantum candies" (invented by Jacobs), a pedagogical model for intuitively describing some basic concepts in quantum information, including quantum bits, complementarity, the no-cloning principle, and entanglement. Following Jacob's quantum candies description of the well-known quantum key distribution protocol BB84, we explicitly demonstrate additional quantum cryptography protocols and quantum communication protocols, using generalized quantum candies (including correlated pairs of qandies). These demonstrations are done in an approachable manner, that can be explained to high-school students, without using the hard-to-grasp concept of superpositions and its mathematics. The intuitive model we investigate has a fascinating overlap with some of the most basic features of quantum theory. Hence, it can be a valuable tool for science and engineering educators who would like to help the general public to gain more insights into quantum science and technology. For the experts, the model we present, due to not employing quantum superpositions, enables - in some sense - extending far beyond quantum theory. Most remarkably, "quantum" candies of some unique type can be defined, such that non-local boxes (of the Popescu-Rohrlich type) as well as regular (correlated) quantum candies can be generated by a single `"quantum" candies machine.

arXiv commentThis is the journal version of: Lin, J. and Mor, T., 2020, December. Quantum Candies and Quantum Cryptography. In International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Natural Computing (pp. 69-81). Springer, Cham., arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.02837. Changes in this version: changed title and abstract, added sections on NLB, quaternionic computing and mixed states

References in corpus (16)

• The Security of Practical Quantum Key Distribution
• Simple Proof of Security of the BB84 Quantum Key Distribution Protocol
• Secure quantum key distribution with realistic devices
• Unconditionally secure quantum bit commitment is impossible
• Finite-key analysis for measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution
• Quantum Key Distribution with Classical Bob
• Semi-Quantum Key Distribution
• Quantum Cryptographic Network based on Quantum Memories
• Mediated Semi-Quantum Key Distribution
• Quantum entanglement can be simulated without communication
• No-cloning of Orthogonal States in Composite Systems
• Comment on "Semiquantum-key distribution using less than four quantum states"
• On the power of non-local boxes
• Staging quantum cryptography with chocolate balls
• Security Proof Against Collective Attacks for an Experimentally Feasible Semiquantum Key Distribution Protocol
• Quantum Candies and Quantum Cryptography