Quantum tomographic cryptography with Bell diagonal states: non-equivalence of classical and quantum distillation protocols

Abstract

We present a generalized tomographic quantum key distribution protocol in which the two parties share a Bell diagonal mixed state of two qubits. We show that if an eavesdropper performs a coherent measurement on many quantum ancilla states simultaneously, classical methods of secure key distillation are less effective than quantum entanglement distillation protocols. We also show that certain Bell diagonal states are resistant to any attempt of incoherent eavesdropping.

9 pages. 2 figures There was an error in the formula 4 (transformation of Bell states). This error does not change the main result of the paper, namely, that quantum distillation is more powerful than classical advantage distillation