Countermeasure for security loophole caused by asymmetric correlations of reference frame independent quantum key distribution with fewer quantum states.

One of the challenging issues in free-space quantum key distribution (QKD) is the requirement of active compensation of the reference frame between the transmitter and receiver. Reference frame independent (RFI) QKD removes active compensation, but it requires more quantum states. A recent proposal can effectively reduce the required quantum states, but this can be achieved assuming the correlations defined in RFI QKD are symmetric. In a real QKD system, such symmetric correlations cannot always be satisfied owing to the device imperfections and optical misalignment. We theoretically analyze the effect of asymmetric correlations. Consequently, we report that the asymmetry causes security loopholes and provide a countermeasure to prevent them. Furthermore, we provide the experimental results of a free-space RFI QKD system to verify the countermeasure for the aforementioned problem. In conclusion, our work provides feasibility of the practical RFI QKD system with fewer quantum states by effectively preventing the security loophole.

Security analysis of quantum key distribution on passive optical networks.

Needs for providing security to end users have brought installation of quantum key distribution (QKD) in one-to-many access networks such as passive optical networks. In the networks, a presence of optical power splitters makes issues for secure key rate more important. However, researches for QKD in access networks have mainly focused on implementation issues rather than protocol development for key rate enhancement. Since secure key rate is theoretically limited by a protocol, researches without protocol development cannot overcome the limit of secure key rate given by a protocol. This brings need of researches for protocol development. In this paper, we provide a new approach which provides secure key rate enhancement over the conventional protocol. Specifically, we propose the secure key rate formula in a passive optical network by extending the secure key rate formula based on the decoy-state BB84 protocol. For a passive optical network, we provide a way that incorporates cooperation across end users. Then, we show that the way can mitigate a photon number splitting (PNS) attack which is crucial in an well known decoy BB84 protocol. Especially, the proposed scheme enables multi-photon states to serve as secure keys unlike the conventional decoy BB84 protocol. Numerical simulations demonstrate that our proposed scheme outperforms the decoy BB84 protocol in secure key rate.