A necessary condition for the security of coherent-one-way quantum key distribution protocol

Mhlambululi Mafu, Adriana Marais, Francesco Petruccione

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The coherent-one-way and the differential-phase-shift protocols are two of the most recent practical quantum key distribution protocols for quantum cryptography. These protocols belong to a class of so-called distributed-phase-reference quantum key distribution protocols. While security proofs for some limited attacks exist, the unconditional security proofs this class of protocol remain unrealised. The existing tools for proving security of protocols against the most general attacks fail to apply to this class of protocol in a straight forward way. One of the necessary conditions for a quantum key distribution protocol to be secure is the presence of noncommuting measurements. In this paper, the coherent-one-way protocol is formalised, and we describe Bob's measurements by non-commuting POVM elements, showing that this security condition is met.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2769-2773
Number of pages5
JournalApplied Mathematics and Information Sciences
Volume8
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Numerical Analysis
  • Analysis
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics

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