Side-Channel-Free Quantum Key Distribution

TY - JOUR

T1 - Side-Channel-Free Quantum Key Distribution

AU - Braunstein, Sam

AU - Pirandola, Stefano

PY - 2012/3/30

Y1 - 2012/3/30

N2 - Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers the promise of absolutely secure communications. However, proofs of absolute security often assume perfect implementation from theory to experiment. Thus, existing systems may be prone to insidious side-channel attacks that rely on flaws in experimental implementation. Here we replace all real channels with virtual channels in a QKD protocol, making the relevant detectors and settings inside private spaces inaccessible while simultaneously acting as a Hilbert space filter to eliminate side-channel attacks. By using a quantum memory we find that we are able to bound the secret-key rate below by the entanglement-distillation rate computed over the distributed states.

AB - Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers the promise of absolutely secure communications. However, proofs of absolute security often assume perfect implementation from theory to experiment. Thus, existing systems may be prone to insidious side-channel attacks that rely on flaws in experimental implementation. Here we replace all real channels with virtual channels in a QKD protocol, making the relevant detectors and settings inside private spaces inaccessible while simultaneously acting as a Hilbert space filter to eliminate side-channel attacks. By using a quantum memory we find that we are able to bound the secret-key rate below by the entanglement-distillation rate computed over the distributed states.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84859295386&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.130502

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.130502

M3 - Article

SN - 0031-9007

VL - 108

JO - Physical Review Letters

JF - Physical Review Letters

IS - 13

M1 - 130502

ER -