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Improved key integrity checking for high-speed quantum key distribution using combinatorial group testing with strongly selective family design

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Abstract

Key integrity checking is a necessary process in practical quantum key distribution (QKD) to check whether there is any error bit escaped from the previous error correction procedure. The traditional single-hash method may become a bottleneck in high-speed QKD since it has to discard all the key bits even if just one error bit exists. In this paper, we propose an improved scheme using combinatorial group testing (CGT) based on strong selective family design to verify key integrity in fine granularity and consequently improve the total efficiency of key generation after the error correction procedure. Code shortening technique and parallel computing are also applied to enhance the scheme’s flexibility and to accelerate the computation. Experimental results show that the scheme can identify the rare error bits precisely and thus avoid dropping the great majority of correct bits, while the overhead is reasonable. For a \(2^{20}\)-bit key, the disclosed information for public comparison is 800 bits (about 0.076 % of the key bits), reducing 256 bits when compared with the previous CGT scheme. Besides, with an Intel® quad-cores CPU at 3.40 GHz and 8 GB RAM, the computational times are 3.0 and 6.3 ms for hashing and decoding, respectively, which are reasonable in real applications and will not cause significant latency in practical QKD systems.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. 61177075 and 61240011), National High-tech R&D Program of China (863 Program) (No. 2013AA013403), Key Technology R&D Project (No. 2012A032300016) and Special Fund for LED Industry (No. 2012A080302004) Of Strategic Emerging Industries Of Guangdong Province, China, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (Nos. 21612437 and 21614313), Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (No. S2013010015471) and ShenZhen Engineering Lab of Optical Fiber Sensor Networks (SZELOFSN-201301). The authors would also like to acknowledge the help of Dr. Henry C.M. Leung from the Department of Computer Science at The University of Hong Kong.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information and Sensing Technologies of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Junbin Fang, Yunhan Luo, Zhe Chen & Weiping Liu

  2. Department of Optoelectronic Engineering, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Junbin Fang, Yunhan Luo & Zhe Chen

  3. Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Zoe L. Jiang, Kexin Ren, Xuan Wang & Xiamu Niu

  4. Department of Computer Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    S. M. Yiu & Lucas C. K. Hui

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  1. Junbin Fang
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Correspondence to Weiping Liu.

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Fang, J., Jiang, Z.L., Ren, K. et al. Improved key integrity checking for high-speed quantum key distribution using combinatorial group testing with strongly selective family design. Quantum Inf Process 13, 1425–1435 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-014-0737-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-014-0737-7

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