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Published February 2010 | Published
Journal Article Open

Security analysis of an untrusted source for quantum key distribution: passive approach

Abstract

We present a passive approach to the security analysis of quantum key distribution (QKD) with an untrusted source. A complete proof of its unconditional security is also presented. This scheme has significant advantages in real-life implementations as it does not require fast optical switching or a quantum random number generator. The essential idea is to use a beam splitter to split each input pulse. We show that we can characterize the source using a cross-estimate technique without active routing of each pulse. We have derived analytical expressions for the passive estimation scheme. Moreover, using simulations, we have considered four real-life imperfections: additional loss introduced by the 'plug&play' structure, inefficiency of the intensity monitor noise of the intensity monitor, and statistical fluctuation introduced by finite data size. Our simulation results show that the passive estimate of an untrusted source remains useful in practice, despite these four imperfections. Also, we have performed preliminary experiments, confirming the utility of our proposal in real-life applications. Our proposal makes it possible to implement the 'plug&play' QKD with the security guaranteed, while keeping the implementation practical.

Additional Information

© 2010 IOP Publishing. Issue 2 (February 2010); received 30 May 2009; published 16 February 2010. We thank Lei Wu and Marc Napoleon for performing some experimental tests, which were supported by NSERC USRA. We also thank Jean-Christian Boileau for discussions in the early stage of this work. Support from the funding agencies CFI, CIPI, the CRC program, CIFAR, MITACS, NSERC, OIT, PREA and Quantum Works is gratefully acknowledged.

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August 21, 2023
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