scholarly journals Feasibility of satellite-to-ground continuous-variable quantum key distribution

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Dequal ◽  
Luis Trigo Vidarte ◽  
Victor Roman Rodriguez ◽  
Giuseppe Vallone ◽  
Paolo Villoresi ◽  
...  

AbstractEstablishing secure communication links at a global scale is a major potential application of quantum information science but also extremely challenging for the underlying technology. Although milestone experiments using satellite-to-ground links and exploiting singe-photon encoding for implementing quantum key distribution have shown recently that this goal is achievable, it is still necessary to further investigate practical solutions compatible with classical optical communication systems. Here, we examine the feasibility of establishing secret keys in a satellite-to-ground downlink configuration using continuous-variable encoding, which can be implemented using standard telecommunication components certified for space environment and able to operate at high symbol rates. Considering a realistic channel model and state-of-the-art technology, and exploiting an orbit subdivision technique for mitigating fluctuations in the transmission efficiency, we find positive secret key rates for a low-Earth-orbit scenario, whereas finite-size effects can be a limiting factor for higher orbits. Our analysis determines regions of values for important experimental parameters where secret key exchange is possible and can be used as a guideline for experimental efforts in this direction.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (22) ◽  
pp. 4956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinchao Ruan ◽  
Hang Zhang ◽  
Wei Zhao ◽  
Xiaoxue Wang ◽  
Xuan Li ◽  
...  

We investigate the optical absorption and scattering properties of four different kinds of seawater as the quantum channel. The models of discrete-modulated continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) in free-space seawater channel are briefly described, and the performance of the four-state protocol and the eight-state protocol in asymptotic and finite-size cases is analyzed in detail. Simulation results illustrate that the more complex is the seawater composition, the worse is the performance of the protocol. For different types of seawater channels, we can improve the performance of the protocol by selecting different optimal modulation variances and controlling the extra noise on the channel. Besides, we can find that the performance of the eight-state protocol is better than that of the four-state protocol, and there is little difference between homodyne detection and heterodyne detection. Although the secret key rate of the protocol that we propose is still relatively low and the maximum transmission distance is only a few hundred meters, the research on CV-QKD over the seawater channel is of great significance, which provides a new idea for the construction of global secure communication network.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4175
Author(s):  
Chao Yu ◽  
Shanhua Zou ◽  
Yun Mao ◽  
Ying Guo

Establishing high-rate secure communications is a potential application of continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) but still challenging for the long-distance transmission technology compatible with modern optical communication systems. Here, we propose a photon subtraction-induced plug-and-play scheme for enhancing CVQKD with discrete-modulation (DM), avoiding the traditional loopholes opened by the transmission of local oscillator. A photon subtraction operation is involved in the plug-and-play scheme for detection while resisting the extra untrusted source noise of the DM-CVQKD system. We analyze the relationship between secret key rate, channel losses, and untrusted source noise. The simulation result shows that the photon-subtracted scheme enhances the performance in terms of the maximal transmission distance and make up for the deficiency of the original system effectively. Furthermore, we demonstrate the influence of finite-size effect on the secret key rate which is close to the practical implementation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (02) ◽  
pp. 1550010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dakai Lin ◽  
Duan Huang ◽  
Peng Huang ◽  
Jinye Peng ◽  
Guihua Zeng

Reconciliation is a significant procedure in a continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) system. It is employed to extract secure secret key from the resulted string through quantum channel between two users. However, the efficiency and the speed of previous reconciliation algorithms are low. These problems limit the secure communication distance and the secure key rate of CV-QKD systems. In this paper, we proposed a high-speed reconciliation algorithm through employing a well-structured decoding scheme based on low density parity-check (LDPC) code. The complexity of the proposed algorithm is reduced obviously. By using a graphics processing unit (GPU) device, our method may reach a reconciliation speed of 25 Mb/s for a CV-QKD system, which is currently the highest level and paves the way to high-speed CV-QKD.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1317
Author(s):  
Xuan Wen ◽  
Qiong Li ◽  
Haokun Mao ◽  
Xiaojun Wen ◽  
Nan Chen

Reconciliation is an essential procedure for continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD). As the most commonly used reconciliation protocol in short-distance CV-QKD, the slice error correction (SEC) allows a system to distill more than 1 bit from each pulse. However, the quantization efficiency is greatly affected by the noisy channel with a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which usually limits the secure distance to about 30 km. In this paper, an improved SEC protocol, named Rotated-SEC (RSEC), is proposed through performing a random orthogonal rotation on the raw data before quantization, and deducing a new estimator for the quantized sequences. Moreover, the RSEC protocol is implemented with polar codes. The experimental results show that the proposed protocol can reach up to a quantization efficiency of about 99%, and maintain at around 96% even at the relatively low SNRs (0.5,1), which theoretically extends the secure distance to about 45 km. When implemented with the polar codes with a block length of 16 Mb, the RSEC achieved a reconciliation efficiency of above 95%, which outperforms all previous SEC schemes. In terms of finite-size effects, we achieved a secret key rate of 7.83×10−3 bits/pulse at a distance of 33.93 km (the corresponding SNR value is 1). These results indicate that the proposed protocol significantly improves the performance of SEC and is a competitive reconciliation scheme for the CV-QKD system.


Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 1100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luyu Huang ◽  
Yichen Zhang ◽  
Ziyang Chen ◽  
Song Yu

A unidimensional continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocol with untrusted detection is proposed, where the two legitimate partners send unidimensional modulated or Gaussian-modulated coherent states to an untrusted third party, i.e., Charlie, to realize the measurement. Compared with the Gaussian-modulated coherent-state protocols, the unidimensional modulated protocols take the advantage of easy modulation, low cost, and only a small number of random numbers required. Security analysis shows that the proposed protocol cannot just defend all detectors side channels, but also achieve great performance under certain conditions. Specifically, three cases are discussed in detail, including using unidimensional modulated coherent states in Alice’s side, in Bob’s side, and in both sides under realistic conditions, respectively. Under the three conditions, we derive the expressions of the secret key rate and give the optimal gain parameters. It is found that the optimal performance of the protocol is achieved by using unidimensional modulated coherent states in both Alice’s and Bob’s side. The resulting protocol shows the potential for long-distance secure communication using the unidimensional quantum key distribution protocol with simple modulation method and untrusted detection under realistic conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kadir Gümüş ◽  
Tobias A. Eriksson ◽  
Masahiro Takeoka ◽  
Mikio Fujiwara ◽  
Masahide Sasaki ◽  
...  

AbstractReconciliation is a key element of continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) protocols, affecting both the complexity and performance of the entire system. During the reconciliation protocol, error correction is typically performed using low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with a single decoding attempt. In this paper, we propose a modification to a conventional reconciliation protocol used in four-state protocol CV-QKD systems called the multiple decoding attempts (MDA) protocol. MDA uses multiple decoding attempts with LDPC codes, each attempt having fewer decoding iteration than the conventional protocol. Between each decoding attempt we propose to reveal information bits, which effectively lowers the code rate. MDA is shown to outperform the conventional protocol in regards to the secret key rate (SKR). A 10% decrease in frame error rate and an 8.5% increase in SKR are reported in this paper. A simple early termination for the LDPC decoder is also proposed and implemented. With early termination, MDA has decoding complexity similar to the conventional protocol while having an improved SKR.


Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 571
Author(s):  
Yuang Wang ◽  
Shanhua Zou ◽  
Yun Mao ◽  
Ying Guo

Underwater quantumkey distribution (QKD) is tough but important formodern underwater communications in an insecure environment. It can guarantee secure underwater communication between submarines and enhance safety for critical network nodes. To enhance the performance of continuous-variable quantumkey distribution (CVQKD) underwater in terms ofmaximal transmission distance and secret key rate as well, we adopt measurement-device-independent (MDI) quantum key distribution with the zero-photon catalysis (ZPC) performed at the emitter of one side, which is the ZPC-based MDI-CVQKD. Numerical simulation shows that the ZPC-involved scheme, which is a Gaussian operation in essence, works better than the single photon subtraction (SPS)-involved scheme in the extreme asymmetric case. We find that the transmission of the ZPC-involved scheme is longer than that of the SPS-involved scheme. In addition, we consider the effects of temperature, salinity and solar elevation angle on the system performance in pure seawater. The maximal transmission distance decreases with the increase of temperature and the decrease of sunlight elevation angle, while it changes little over a broad range of salinity


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 010305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Guo ◽  
Yu Su ◽  
Jian Zhou ◽  
Ling Zhang ◽  
Duan Huang

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (05) ◽  
pp. 1250059 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAOZHU SUN ◽  
XIANG PENG ◽  
YUJIE SHEN ◽  
HONG GUO

The original two-way continuous-variable quantum-key-distribution (CV-QKD) protocols [S. Pirandola, S. Mancini, S. Lloyd and S. L. Braunstein, Nat. Phys. 4 (2008) 726] give the security against the collective attack on the condition of the tomography of the quantum channels. We propose a family of new two-way CV-QKD protocols and prove their security against collective entangling cloner attacks without the tomography of the quantum channels. The simulation result indicates that the new protocols maintain the same advantage as the original two-way protocols whose tolerable excess noise surpasses that of the one-way CV-QKD protocol. We also show that all sub-protocols within the family have higher secret key rate and much longer transmission distance than the one-way CV-QKD protocol for the noisy channel.


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