Generic security analysis framework for quantum secure direct communication

Quantum secure direct communication provides a direct means of conveying secret information via quantum states among legitimate users.The past two decades have witnessed its great strides both theoretically and experimentally.However,the security analysis of it still stays in its infant.Some practical problems in this field to be solved urgently,such as detector efficiency mismatch,side-channel effect and source imperfection,are propelling the birth of a more impeccable solution.In this paper,we establish a new framework of the security analysis driven by numerics where all the practical problems may be taken into account naturally.We apply this framework to several variations of the DL04 protocol considering real-world experimental conditions.Also,we propose two optimizing methods to process the numerical part of the framework so as to meet different requirements in practice.With these properties considered,we predict the robust framework would open up a broad avenue of the development in the field.

Experimental measurement-device-independent type quantum key distribution with flawed and correlated sources

The security of quantum key distribution(QKD)is severely threatened by discrepancies between realistic devices and theoretical assumptions.Recently,a significant framework called the reference technique was proposed to provide security against arbitrary source flaws under current technology such as state preparation flaws,side channels caused by mode dependencies,the Trojan horse attacks and pulse correlations.Here,we adopt the reference technique to prove security of an efficient four-phase measurement-device-independent QKD using laser pulses against potential source imperfections.We present a characterization of source flaws and connect them to experiments,together with a finite-key analysis against coherent attacks.In addition,we demonstrate the feasibility of our protocol through a proof-of-principle experimental implementation and achieve a secure key rate of 253 bps with a 20 d B channel loss.Compared with previous QKD protocols with imperfect devices,our study considerably improves both the secure key rate and the transmission distance,and shows application potential in the practical deployment of secure QKD with device imperfections.

Quantum key distribution system against the probabilistic faint after-gate attack

In practical quantum key distribution(QKD)systems,a single photon-detector(SPD)is one of the most vulnerable components.Faint after-gate attack is a universal attack against the detector.However,the original faint after-gate attack can be discovered by monitoring the photocurrent.This paper presents a probabilistic generalization of the attack,which we refer to as probabilistic faint after-gate attack,by introducing probability control modules.Previous countermeasures for photocurrent monitoring may fail in detecting the eavesdropper under some specific probabilities.To mitigate this threat,we provide a method to determine the detectable boundary in the limitation of precision of photocurrent monitoring,and investigate the security of QKD systems under such boundaries using the weak randomness model.