Single-photon-memory two-step quantum secure direct communication relying on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs
Single-photon-memory two-step quantum secure direct communication relying on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) is an important branch of quantum communication that is capable of directly transmitting secret messages over a quantum channel. It may be viewed as a concrete realization of Wyner’s wiretap channel theory, which ensures the reliable and secure communication of information in the presence of noise and eavesdropping. Hence it is a fully-fledged quantum-communications protocol, which does not require a separate secret key negotiation phase. By contrast, its quantum key distribution (QKD) counterpart represents a secret key-negotiation protocol, which has to be followed up by a separate classical communication session. The essential difference between these two modes of quantum communication lies in the employment of a block-based data transmission technique, proposed by Long and Liu in 2000. However, the original block-based data transmission requires quantum memory, which is not widely available at the time of writing. Recently, this difficulty has been overcome by using classical coding theory, which has been successfully applied to the single-qubit DL04 QSDC. Here we will present a single-photon-memory QSDC protocol based on entangled pairs of photons. We commence by comparing QSDC to QKD, followed by an example of the single-photon QSDC and single-photon QKD protocol. Then we continue by modifying the so-called two-step QSDC protocol designed for deterministic QKD by reducing the number of qubits in a block into a single one, in which Alice prepares Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) photon pairs and partitions them into two parts: the so-called pioneer qubit and the follow-up qubit. The pioneer photon is transferred first to Bob, while the follow-up photon is used either for performing encoding or for eavesdropping detection. Bob extracts the candidate key by combining the two particles of the EPR pair to perform Bell-basis measurement. Then the protocol is transformed into a single-photon-memory QSDC using coding theory. Our theoretical analysis shows that the resultant protocol is robust to individual attacks. Additionally, a high communication efficiency is achieved.
Quantum secure direct communication, entanglement, quantum key distribution
121146-121161
Pan, Dong
353892b5-b8b3-4f6f-92d5-9d9544b1266e
Li, Keren
b5785117-6d7e-4a99-affa-091f7cccd65a
Ruan, Dong
faf8baae-fcba-4d3e-89ea-98f36d89af9c
Ng, Soon
e19a63b0-0f12-4591-ab5f-554820d5f78c
Hanzo, Lajos
66e7266f-3066-4fc0-8391-e000acce71a1
30 June 2020
Pan, Dong
353892b5-b8b3-4f6f-92d5-9d9544b1266e
Li, Keren
b5785117-6d7e-4a99-affa-091f7cccd65a
Ruan, Dong
faf8baae-fcba-4d3e-89ea-98f36d89af9c
Ng, Soon
e19a63b0-0f12-4591-ab5f-554820d5f78c
Hanzo, Lajos
66e7266f-3066-4fc0-8391-e000acce71a1
Pan, Dong, Li, Keren, Ruan, Dong, Ng, Soon and Hanzo, Lajos
(2020)
Single-photon-memory two-step quantum secure direct communication relying on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs.
IEEE Access, 8, , [9129730].
(doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3006136).
Abstract
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) is an important branch of quantum communication that is capable of directly transmitting secret messages over a quantum channel. It may be viewed as a concrete realization of Wyner’s wiretap channel theory, which ensures the reliable and secure communication of information in the presence of noise and eavesdropping. Hence it is a fully-fledged quantum-communications protocol, which does not require a separate secret key negotiation phase. By contrast, its quantum key distribution (QKD) counterpart represents a secret key-negotiation protocol, which has to be followed up by a separate classical communication session. The essential difference between these two modes of quantum communication lies in the employment of a block-based data transmission technique, proposed by Long and Liu in 2000. However, the original block-based data transmission requires quantum memory, which is not widely available at the time of writing. Recently, this difficulty has been overcome by using classical coding theory, which has been successfully applied to the single-qubit DL04 QSDC. Here we will present a single-photon-memory QSDC protocol based on entangled pairs of photons. We commence by comparing QSDC to QKD, followed by an example of the single-photon QSDC and single-photon QKD protocol. Then we continue by modifying the so-called two-step QSDC protocol designed for deterministic QKD by reducing the number of qubits in a block into a single one, in which Alice prepares Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) photon pairs and partitions them into two parts: the so-called pioneer qubit and the follow-up qubit. The pioneer photon is transferred first to Bob, while the follow-up photon is used either for performing encoding or for eavesdropping detection. Bob extracts the candidate key by combining the two particles of the EPR pair to perform Bell-basis measurement. Then the protocol is transformed into a single-photon-memory QSDC using coding theory. Our theoretical analysis shows that the resultant protocol is robust to individual attacks. Additionally, a high communication efficiency is achieved.
Text
Single-Photon-Memory Two-Step
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Accepted/In Press date: 28 June 2020
Published date: 30 June 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2017YFA0303700, in part by the Key Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province under Grant 2018B030325002, in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 11974205, and in part by the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Chip (ICFC). The work of Dong Pan was supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) under Grant 201806210237. The work of Lajos Hanzo was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, COALESCE, under Project EP/N004558/1, Project EP/P034284/1, Project EP/P034284/1, and Project EP/P003990/1, in part by the Royal Society’s Global Challenges Research Fund Grant, and in part by the European Research Council’s Advanced Fellow Grant QuantCom.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 IEEE.
Keywords:
Quantum secure direct communication, entanglement, quantum key distribution
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 442305
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/442305
ISSN: 2169-3536
PURE UUID: 7b5fbd7e-186f-4c87-950f-9a23a8ca951b
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Date deposited: 13 Jul 2020 16:30
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 02:48
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Contributors
Author:
Dong Pan
Author:
Keren Li
Author:
Dong Ruan
Author:
Soon Ng
Author:
Lajos Hanzo
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