本研究利用确定性单光子双量子比特量子逻辑，实现了针对 BB84 协议的最强单光子攻击，物理模拟了 Eve 访问 Bob 接收模块的真实攻击，实验结果与理论预测高度一致，证明了确定性量子逻辑在量子信息处理模拟中的实用性。
摘要：
我们使用确定性单光子双量子比特（SPTQ）量子逻辑来实现针对 Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) 量子密钥分发协议的最强单光子攻击。我们的测量结果（包括物理源和门误差）与 Eve 获得的 Renyi 信息的理论预测非常吻合，该信息是 Eve 传递给 Alice 和 Bob 筛选密钥位的误差的函数。当前实验是对真实攻击的物理模拟，因为 Eve 可以访问 Bob 的物理接收器模块。本实验说明了高效确定性量子逻辑在执行量子信息处理功能的真实物理模拟中的实用性。
英文摘要：
We have used deterministic single-photon two qubit (SPTQ) quantum logic to implement the most powerful individual-photon attack against the Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) quantum key distribution protocol. Our measurement results, including physical source and gate errors, are in good agreement with theoretical predictions for the Renyi information obtained by Eve as a function of the errors she imparts to Alice and Bob's sifted key bits. The current experiment is a physical simulation of a true attack, because Eve has access to Bob's physical receiver module. This experiment illustrates the utility of an efficient deterministic quantum logic for performing realistic physical simulations of quantum information processing functions.
We introduce a suit of simple entangling protocols for generating tripartite GHZ and W states in systems with anisotropic exchange interaction g(XX+YY)+g'ZZ. An interesting example is provided by macroscopic entanglement in Josephson phase qubits with capacitive (g'=0) and inductive (0<|g'/g|<0.1) couplings.
We investigate how to attack Shor's quantum algorithm for factorization with an entangling probe. We show that an attacker can steal an exact solution of Shor's algorithm outside an institute where the quantum computer is installed if he replaces its initialized quantum register with entangled qubits, namely the entangling probe. He can apply arbitrary local operations to his own probe. Moreover, we assume that there is an unauthorized person who helps the attacker to commit a crime inside the institute. He tells garbage data obtained from measurements of the quantum register to the attacker s…
It is shown that an existing method to study ideal individual attacks on the BB84 QKD protocol using error discard can be adapted to reconciliation with error correction, and that an optimal attack can be explicitly found. Moreover, this attack fills Luetkenhaus bound, independently of whether error positions are leaked to Eve, proving that it is tight. In addition, we clarify why the existence of such optimal attacks is not in contradiction with the established ``old-style'' theory of BB84 individual attacks, as incorrectly suggested recently in a news feature.
It is widely spread in the literature that non-Markovianity (NM) may be regarded as a resource in quantum mechanics. However, it is still unclear how and when this alleged resource may be exploited. Here, we study the relationship between NM and quantum optimal control under the objective of generating entanglement within M non-interacting subsystems, each one coupled to the same non-Markovian environment. Thus, we design a variety of entangling protocols that are only achievable due to the existence of the environment. We show that NM plays a crucial role in all the entangling protocols consi…
In this contribution we consider an advantageous building block with potential for various quantum applications: a device based on coupled spins capable of generating and sharing out an entangled pair of qubits. Our model device is a dimerised spin chain with three weakly coupled embedded sites (defects). Three different entangling protocols were proposed for this chain in [1] and [2], one producing a Cluster state and two generating a Bell state, depending on the initial state injection. Here we compare the robustness of such protocols as quantum entangling gates against different types of fa…
We introduce a method to speed up adiabatic protocols for creating entanglement between two qubits dispersively coupled to a transmission line, while keeping fidelities high and maintaining robustness to control errors. The method takes genuinely adiabatic sweeps, ranging from a simple Landau-Zener drive to boundary cancellation methods and local adiabatic drivings, and adds fast oscillations to speed up the protocol while canceling unwanted transitions. We compare our protocol with existing adiabatic methods in a state-of-the-art parameter range and show substantial gains. Numerical simulatio…
Not all quantum protocols require entanglement to outperform their classical alternatives. The nonclassical correlations that lead to this quantum advantage are conjectured to be captured by quantum discord. Here we demonstrate that discord can be explicitly used as a resource: certifying untrusted entangling gates without generating entanglement at any stage. We implement our protocol in the single-photon regime, and show its success in the presence of high levels of noise and imperfect gate operations. Our technique offers a practical method for benchmarking entangling gates in physical arch…
We present a new and simplified two-qubit randomized benchmarking procedure that operates only in the symmetric subspace of a pair of qubits and is well suited for benchmarking trapped-ion systems. By performing benchmarking only in the symmetric subspace, we drastically reduce the experimental complexity, number of gates required, and run time. The protocol is demonstrated on trapped ions using collective single-qubit rotations and the Molmer-Sorenson (MS) interaction to estimate an entangling gate error of $2(1) \times 10^{-3}$. We analyze the expected errors in the MS gate and find that pop…
The following paper provides a protocol to physically generate a $2$-qutrit entangling gate in the Kauffman-Jones version of $SU(2)$ Chern-Simons theory at level $4$. The protocol uses elementary operations on anyons consisting of braids, interferometric measurements, fusions and unfusions and ancilla pair creation.
A continuous variable measurement device independent multi-party quantum communication protocol is investigated in this paper. Utilizing distributed continuous variable Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state, this protocol can implement both quantum cryptographic conference and quantum secret sharing. We analyze the security of the protocol against both entangling cloner attack and coherent attack. Entangling cloner attack is a practical individual attack, and coherent attack is the optimal attack Eve can implement. Simulation results show that coherent attack can greatly reduce the secret key rate…
We consider entanglement purification protocols for multiple copies of qubit states. We use high-dimensional auxiliary entangled systems to learn about number and positions of errors in the noisy ensemble in an explicit and controlled way, thereby reducing the amount of noise in the ensemble and purifying the remaining states. This allows us to design entanglement purification protocols for any number of copies that work particularly well for a small number of expected errors, i.e. high fidelity of initial states. The main tool is a counter gate with which the required non-local information ca…
It is known that any bipartite unitary operator of Schmidt rank three is equivalent to a controlled unitary under local unitaries. We propose a standard form of such operators. Using the form we improve the upper bound for the entanglement cost to implement such operators under local operations and classical communications (LOCC), and provide a corresponding protocol. A part of our protocol is based on a recursive-control protocol which is helpful for implementing other unitary operators. We show that any bipartite permutation unitary of Schmidt rank three can be implemented using LOCC and two…
We propose a theoretical protocol to implement multiqubit geometric gates (i.e., the Mølmer-Sørensen gate) using photonic cat-state qubits. These cat-state qubits stored in high-$Q$ resonators are promising for hardware-efficient universal quantum computing. Specifically, in the limit of strong two-photon drivings, phase-flip errors of the cat-state qubits are effectively suppressed, leaving only a bit-flip error to be corrected. Because this dominant error commutes with the evolution operator, our protocol preserves the error bias, and, thus, can lower the code-capacity threshold for error co…
The Fuchs-Peres-Brandt (FPB) probe realizes the most powerful individual attack on Bennett-Brassard 1984 quantum key distribution by means of a single controlled-NOT gate in which Alice's transmitted qubit becomes the control-qubit input, Bob's received qubit is the control-qubit output, and Eve supplies the target-qubit input and measures the target-qubit output. The FPB probe uses the minimum-error-probability projective measurement for discriminating between the target-qubit output states that are perfectly correlated with Bob's sifted bit value when that bit is correctly received. This pap…
Superconducting microwave circuits with Josephson junctions are a major platform for quantum computing. To unleash their full capabilities, the cooperative operation of multiple microwave superconducting circuits is required. Therefore, designing an efficient protocol to distribute microwave entanglement remotely becomes a crucial open problem. Here, we propose a continuous-variable entanglement-swap approach based on optical-microwave entanglement generation, which can boost the ultimate rate by two orders of magnitude at state-of-the-art parameter region, compared with traditional approaches…
The accurate and reliable characterization of quantum dynamical processes underlies efforts to validate quantum technologies, where discrimination between competing models of observed behaviors inform efforts to fabricate and operate qubit devices. We present a novel protocol for quantum channel discrimination that leverages advances in direct characterization of quantum dynamics (DCQD) codes. We demonstrate that DCQD codes enable selective process tomography to improve discrimination between entangling and correlated quantum dynamics. Numerical simulations show selective process tomography re…
This paper addresses the question how to implement a desired two-qubit gate U using a given tunable two-qubit entangling interaction H_int. We present a general method which is based on the K_1 A K_2 decomposition of unitary matrices in SU(4) to calculate analytically the smallest number of two-qubit gates U_int [based on H_int] and single-qubit rotations, and the explicit sequence of these operations that are required to implement U. We illustrate our protocol by calculating the implementation of (1) the transformation from standard basis to Bell basis, (2) the CNOT gate, and (3) the quantum …
Quantum error-correcting codes are many-body entangled states that are prepared and measured using complex sequences of entangling operations. Each element of such an entangling sequence introduces noise to delicate quantum information during the encoding or reading out of the code. It is important therefore to find efficient entangling protocols to avoid the loss of information. Here we propose an experiment that uses only global entangling operations to encode an arbitrary logical qubit to either the five-qubit repetition code or the five-qubit code, with a six-ion Coulomb crystal architectu…
The power of a quantum circuit is determined through the number of two-qubit entangling gates that can be performed within the coherence time of the system. In the absence of parallel quantum gate operations, this would make the quantum simulators limited to shallow circuits. Here, we propose a protocol to parallelize the implementation of two-qubit entangling gates between multiple users which are spatially separated, and use a commonly shared spin chain data-bus. Our protocol works through inducing effective interaction between each pair of qubits without disturbing the others, therefore, it…
A design is given for an optimized entangling probe attacking the BB84 (Bennett-Brassard 1984) protocol of quantum key distribution and yielding maximum information to the probe for a full range of induced error rates. Probe photon polarization states become optimally entangled with the signal states on their way between the legitimate transmitter and receiver. Although standard von-Neumann projective measurements of the probe yield maximum information on the pre-privacy amplified key, if instead the probe measurements are performed with a certain positive operator valued measure, then the mea…
Optimal control techniques are applied for the decomposition of unitary quantum operations into a sequence of single-qubit gates and entangling operations. To this end, we modify a gradient-ascent algorithm developed for systems of coupled nuclear spins in molecules to make it suitable for trapped ion quantum computing. We decompose unitary operations into entangling gates that are based on a nonlinear collective spin operator and complemented by global spinflip and local light shift gates. Among others, we provide explicit decompositions of controlled-NOT and Toffoli gates, and a simple quant…
We propose a protocol for the deterministic generation of entanglement between two ensembles of nuclear spins surrounding two distant quantum dots. The protocol relies on the injection of electrons with definite polarization in each quantum dot and the coherent transfer of electrons from one quantum dot to the other. Computing the exact dynamics for small systems, and using an effective master equation and approximate non-linear equations of motion for larger systems, we are able to confirm that our protocol indeed produces entanglement for both homogeneous and inhomogeneous systems. Last, we …
The generation of entanglement between remote matter qubits has developed into a key capability for fundamental investigations as well as for emerging quantum technologies. In the single-photon, protocol entanglement is heralded by generation of qubit-photon entangled states and subsequent detection of a single photon behind a beam splitter. In this work we perform a detailed theoretical and experimental investigation of this protocol and its various sources of infidelity. We develop an extensive theoretical model and subsequently tailor it to our experimental setting, based on nitrogen-vacanc…
We propose to optimally control the harmonic potential of a levitated nanoparticle to quantum delocalize its center-of-mass motional state to a length scale orders of magnitude larger than the quantum zero-point motion. Using a bang-bang control of the harmonic potential, including the possibility to invert it, the initial ground-state-cooled levitated nanoparticle coherently expands to large scales and then contracts to the initial state in a time-optimal way. We show that this fast loop protocol can be used to enhance force sensing as well as to dramatically boost the entangling rate of two …
Recent experiments with silicon qubits demonstrated strong coupling of a microwave resonator to the spin of a single electron in a double quantum dot, opening up the possibility of long-range spin-spin interactions. We present our theoretical calculation of effective interactions between distant quantum dot spins coupled by a resonator, and propose a protocol for fast, high-fidelity two-qubit gates consistent with experimentally demonstrated capabilities. Our simulations show that, in the presence of noise, spin-spin entangling gates significantly outperform cavity-mediated gates on charge qub…
The performance of quantum gate operations is experimentally determined by how correct operational parameters can be determined and set, and how stable these parameters can be maintained. In addition, gates acting on different sets of qubits require unique sets of control parameters. Thus, an efficient multi-dimensional parameter estimation procedure is crucial to calibrate even medium sized quantum processors. Here, we develop and characterize an efficient calibration protocol to automatically estimate and adjust experimental parameters of the widely used Molmer-Sorensen entangling gate opera…
Color centers in solids, such as the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond, offer well-protected and well-controlled localized electron spins that can be employed in various quantum technologies. Moreover, the long coherence time of the surrounding spinful nuclei can enable a robust quantum register controlled through the color center. We design pulse sequence protocols that drive the electron spin to generate robust entangling gates with these nuclear memory qubits. We find that compared to using Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) alone, Uhrig decoupling sequence and hybrid protocols composed of C…
We propose a protocol for perfect quantum state transfer that is resilient to a broad class of realistic experimental imperfections, including noise sources that could be modelled either as independent Markovian baths or as certain forms of spatially correlated environments. We highlight interesting connections between the fidelity of state transfer and quantum stochastic resonance effects. The scheme is flexible enough to act as an effective entangling gate for the generation of genuine multipartite entanglement in a control-limited setting. Possible experimental implementations using superco…
Efficiently entangling pairs of qubits is essential to fully harness the power of quantum computing. Here, we devise an exact protocol that simultaneously entangles arbitrary pairs of qubits on a trapped-ion quantum computer. The protocol requires classical computational resources polynomial in the system size, and very little overhead in the quantum control compared to a single-pair case. We demonstrate an exponential improvement in both classical and quantum resources over the current state of the art. We implement the protocol on a software-defined trapped-ion quantum computer, where we rec…
We introduce a fully tuneable entangling gate for continuous-variable one-way quantum computation. We present a proof-of-principle demonstration by propagating two independent optical inputs through a three-mode linear cluster state and applying the gate in various regimes. The genuine quantum nature of the gate is confirmed by verifying the entanglement strength in the output state. Our protocol can be readily incorporated into efficient multi-mode interaction operations in the context of large-scale one-way quantum computation, as our tuning process is the generalisation of cluster state sha…
For the four-state protocol of quantum key distribution, optimum sets of probe parameters are calculated for the most general unitary probe in which each individual transmitted photon is made to interact with the probe so that the signal and the probe are left in an entangled state, and projective measurement by the probe, made subsequent to projective measurement by the legitimate receiver, yields information about the signal state. The probe optimization is based on maximizing the Renyi information gain by the probe on corrected data for a given error rate induced by the probe in the legitim…
In distributed quantum computation, small devices composed of a single or a few qubits are networker together to achieve a scalable machine. Typically there is an optically active matter qubit at each node, so that photons are exploited to achieve remote entanglement. However, in many systems the optically active states are unstable or poorly defined. We report a scheme to perform a high-fidelity entanglement operation even given severe instability. The protocol exploits the existence of optically excited states for phase acquisition without actually exciting those states; it functions with or…
We introduce a modification of the standard entanglement swapping protocol where the generation of entanglement between two distant modes is realized and verified using only local optical measurements. We show, indeed, that a simple condition on the purity of the initial state involving also an ancillary mode is sufficient to guarantee the success of the protocol by local measurements {M. Abdi \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{109}, 143601 (2012)}]. We apply the proposed protocol to a tripartite optomechanical system where the never interacting mechanical modes become entangled and cer…
Entangling an unknown qubit with one type of reference state is generally impossible. However, entangling an unknown qubit with two types of reference states is possible. To achieve this, we introduce a new class of states called zero sum amplitude (ZSA) multipartite, pure entangled states for qubits and study their salient features. Using shared-ZSA state, local operation and classical communication we give a protocol for creating multipartite entangled states of an unknown quantum state with two types of reference states at remote places. This provides a way of encoding an unknown pure qubit…
We theoretically investigate the generation of heralded entanglement between two identical atoms via cavity-assisted photon scattering in two different configurations, namely either both atoms confined in the same cavity or trapped into locally separated ones. Our protocols are given by a very simple and elegant single-step process, whose key mechanism is a controlled-phase-flip gate implemented by impinging a single photon on single-sided cavities. In particular, when the atoms are localized in remote cavities, we introduce a single-step parallel quantum circuit instead of the serial process …
We demonstrate theoretically a scheme for cluster state generation, based on atomic ensembles and the dipole blockade mechanism. In the protocol, atomic ensembles serve as single qubit systems. Therefore, we review single-qubit operations on qubit defined as collective states of atomic ensemble. Our entangling protocol requires nearly identical single-photon sources, one ultra-cold ensemble per physical qubit, and regular photodetectors. The general entangling procedure is presented, as well as a procedure that generates in a single step Q-qubit GHZ states with success probability p_success ~ …
We propose a protocol able to prepare two remote and initially uncorrelated microwave modes in an entangled stationary state, which is certifiable using only local optical homodyne measurements. The protocol is an extension of continuous variable entanglement swapping, and exploits two hybrid quadripartite opto-electro-mechanical systems in which a nanomechanical resonator acts as a quantum interface able to entangle optical and microwave fields. The proposed protocol allows to circumvent the problems associated with the fragility of microwave photons with respect to thermal noise and may repr…
We describe a simple, practical scheme for generating multi-qubit W states in resonator-based architectures, in which N Josephson phase qubits are capacitively coupled to a common resonator bus. The entire control sequence consists of three pulses: a local Rabi pulse that excites a single qubit in the circuit; a coupling pulse that transfers the qubit excitation to the resonator bus; and the main, entangling operation that simultaneously couples the bus to all N qubits. If the qubit-resonator coupling strength g is much smaller than the qubit energy splitting, the system initially excited into…
We suggest an attack on a symmetric non-ideal quantum coin-tossing protocol suggested by Mayers Salvail and Chiba-Kohno. The analysis of the attack shows that the protocol is insecure.
We discuss the robustness of two-way quantum communication protocols against Trojan horse attack and introduce a novel attack, delay-photon Trojan horse attack. Moreover, we present a practical way for two-way quantum communication protocols to prevent the eavesdropper from stealing the information transmitted with Trojan horse attacks. It means that two-way quantum communication protocols is also secure in a practical application.
Heralded entanglement between distant quantum memories is the key resource for quantum networks. Based on quantum repeater protocols, these networks will facilitate efficient large-scale quantum communication and distributed quantum computing. However, despite vast efforts, long-distance fibre based network links have not been realized yet. Here we present results demonstrating heralded entanglement between two independent, remote single-atom quantum memories generated over fibre links with a total length up to 33 km. To overcome the attenuation losses in the long optical fibres of photons ini…
We propose a double blinding-attack on entangled-based quantum key distribution protocols. The principle of the attack is the same as in existing blinding attack except that instead of blinding the detectors on one side only, Eve is blinding the detectors of both Alice and Bob. In the BBM92 protocol, the attack allows Eve to get a full knowledge of the key and remain undetected even if Alice and Bob are using 100% efficient detectors. The attack can be easily extended to Ekert protocol, with an efficiency as high as 85.3%.
We propose a new class of quantum key distribution protocol, that ended up to be robust against photon number splitting attacks in the weak laser pulse implementations. This protocol comprises of BB84 protocol and SARG protocol, especially in aspects of controlling classical sifting procedures of two protocols. The protocol is more secure than both of BB84 protocol and SARG protocol, and the ultimate limit of robustness in the proposed protocol expands as well than both of them.
We introduce a new class of quantum quantum key distribution protocols, tailored to be robust against photon number splitting (PNS) attacks. We study one of these protocols, which differs from the BB84 only in the classical sifting procedure. This protocol is provably better than BB84 against PNS attacks at zero error.
We suggest here a two-point eavesdropping strategy to two nonorthogonal states protocol of quantum key distribution over a fiber-optic channel. Suppose that the single-photon sources and detectors of Alice, Bob and Eves are ideal ones, the two-point attack can break the two nonorthogonal states protocol if the distance between Alice and Bob is sufficiently long. For single-photon type B92 protocol, the upper bound of distance is about 30 kilometers. It is interesting that Bennett's original multi-photon protocol is secure against both two-point attack and beam splitting attack, even if the pro…
