Based on entanglement swapping between two Bell states, two novel quantum key distribution protocols are proposed. One is for two-level systems, where there is no need for classical communication before each entanglement swapping. This feature is essential to its practical realization. Furthermore, to establish an arbitrarily long key, the protocol needs only two Bell states. The other is for d-level (d > 2) systems, in which higher security and higher source capacity are achieved. Using the theory of quadratic residue, we prove that in the two-qudit systems, each Bell state is a uniform superposition of all basis states in the dual basis, which is different to the situation in two-qubit systems. This difference means our two-level protocol cannot be generalized to the d-level situation directly. On the other hand, it results in higher security of our d-level protocol and is instructive to design quantum cryptography protocols.
Entanglement cost of discriminating noisy Bell states by local operations and classical communication
