Abstract
In this work we present a two-way quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme that uses single-photon-added coherent states and displacement operations. The first party randomly sends coherent states (CS) or single-photon-added coherent states (SPACS) to the second party. The latter sends back the same state it received. Both parties decide which kind of states they are receiving by detecting or not a photon on the received signal after displacement operations. The first party must determine whether its sent and received states are equal; otherwise, the case must be discarded. We are going to show that an eavesdropper provided with a beam splitter gets the same information in any of the non-discarded cases. The key can be obtained by assigning 0 to CS and 1 to SPACS in the non-discarded cases. This protocol guarantees keys’ security in the presence of a beam splitter attack even for states with a high number of photons in the sent signal. It also works in a lossy quantum channel, becoming a good bet for improving long-distance QKD.
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Notes
Weaker than 0.2 photons per pulse in many practical implementations.
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Miranda, M., Mundarain, D. Two-way QKD with single-photon-added coherent states. Quantum Inf Process 16, 298 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-017-1752-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-017-1752-2