Abstract
Complementarity is one of the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics, which prohibits the control of both of a pair of physical quantities even if either one alone is accessible. This property is useful in understanding the relation between quantum communication and secret communication: It gives a simple explanation why basic quantum key distribution protocols are secure against any eavesdropping attack. The imperfection in the final secret key is determined through the failure probabilities of a pair of complementary tasks, which have a clear operational meaning. It also serves as a powerful tool for proving the security under the use of practical imperfect devices. Finally, it gives a comprehensive understanding of how quantum correlations provide the ability of secret communication, since one can prove that for every case in which a secret key is obtained though quantum communication, there exists an explanation in terms of complementarity.
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© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Koashi, M. (2010). Security of Key Distribution and Complementarity in Quantum Mechanics. In: Kurosawa, K. (eds) Information Theoretic Security. ICITS 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5973. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14496-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14496-7_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14495-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14496-7
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