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In device-independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD), an adversary prepares a device consisting of two components, distributed to Alice and Bob, who use the device to generate a secure key. The security of existing DIQKD schemes holds under the assumption that the two components of the device cannot communicate with one another during the protocol execution. This is called the no-communication assumption in DIQKD. Here, we show how to replace this assumption, which can be hard to enforce in practice, by a standard computational assumption from post-quantum cryptography: we give a protocol that produces secure keys even when the components of an adversarial device can exchange arbitrary quantum communication, assuming the device is computationally bounded. Importantly, the computational assumption only needs to hold during the protocol execution—the keys generated at the end of the protocol are information-theoretically secure as in standard DIQKD protocols.

A device-independent randomness expansion (DIRE) protocol aims to take an initial random string and generate a longer one, where the security of the protocol does not rely on knowing the inner workings of the devices used to run it. In order to do so, the protocol tests that the devices violate a Bell inequality and one then needs to bound the amount of extractable randomness in terms of the observed violation. The entropy accumulation theorem lower bounds the extractable randomness of a protocol with many rounds in terms of the single-round von Neumann entropy of any strategy achieving the observed score. Tight bounds on the von Neumann entropy are known for the one-sided randomness (i.e. where the randomness from only one party is used) when using the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt game. Here we investigate the possible improvement that could be gained using the two-sided randomness. We generate upper bounds on this randomness by attempting to find the optimal eavesdropping strategy, providing analytic formulae in two cases. We additionally compute lower bounds that outperform previous ones and can be made arbitrarily tight (at the expense of more computation time). These bounds get close to our upper bounds, and hence we conjecture that our upper bounds are tight. We also consider a modified protocol in which the input randomness is recycled. This modified protocol shows the possibility of rate gains of several orders of magnitude based on recent experimental parameters, making DIRE significantly more practical. It also enables the locality loophole to be closed while expanding randomness in a way that typical spot-checking protocols do not.

Random access coding is an information task that has been extensively studied and found many applications in quantum information. In this scenario, Alice receives an n-bit string x, and wishes to encode x into a quantum state x , such that Bob, when receiving the state x , can choose any bit i [ n ] and recover the input bit xi with high probability. Here we study two variants: parity-oblivious random access codes (RACs), where we impose the cryptographic property that Bob cannot infer any information about the parity of any subset of bits of the input apart from the single bits xi; and even-parity-oblivious RACs, where Bob cannot infer any information about the parity of any even-size subset of bits of the input. In this paper, we provide the optimal bounds for parity-oblivious quantum RACs and show that they are asymptotically better than the optimal classical ones. Our results provide a large non-contextuality inequality violation and resolve the main open problem in a work of Spekkens et al (2009 Phys. Rev. Lett.102 010401). Second, we provide the optimal bounds for even-parity-oblivious RACs by proving their equivalence to a non-local game and by providing tight bounds for the success probability of the non-local game via semidefinite programming. In the case of even-parity-oblivious RACs, the cryptographic property holds also in the device independent model.

Finding ways to test the behaviour of quantum devices is a timely enterprise, especially in light of the rapid development of quantum technologies. Device-independent self-testing is one desirable approach, as it makes minimal assumptions on the devices being tested. In this work, we address the question of which states can be self-tested. This has been answered recently in the bipartite case (Coladangelo et al 2017 Nat. Commun. 8 15485), while it is largely unexplored in the multipartite case, with only a few scattered results, using a variety of different methods: maximal violation of a Bell inequality, numerical SWAP method, stabiliser self-testing etc. In this work, we investigate a simple, and potentially unifying, approach: combining projections onto two-qubit spaces (projecting parties or degrees of freedom) and then using maximal violation of the tilted CHSH inequalities. This allows one to obtain self-testing of Dicke states and partially entangled GHZ states with two measurements per party, and also to recover self-testing of graph states (previously known only through stabiliser methods). Finally, we give the first self-test of a class of multipartite qudit states: we generalise the self-testing of partially entangled GHZ states by adapting techniques from (Coladangelo et al 2017 Nat. Commun. 8 15485), and show that all multipartite states which admit a Schmidt decomposition can be self-tested with few measurements.

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a technique enabling provable secure communication but faces challenges in device characterization, posing potential security risks. Device-independent (DI) QKD protocols overcome this issue by making minimal device assumptions but are limited in distance because they require high detection efficiencies, which refer to the ability of the experimental setup to detect quantum states. It is thus desirable to find quantum key distribution protocols that are based on realistic assumptions on the devices as well as implementable over long distances. In this work, we consider a one-sided DI QKD scheme with two measurements per party and show that it is secure against coherent attacks up to detection efficiencies greater than 50.1% specifically on the untrusted side. This is almost the theoretical limit achievable for protocols with two untrusted measurements. Interestingly, we also show that, by placing the source of states close to the untrusted side, our protocol is secure over distances comparable to standard QKD protocols.

Recent advances in theoretical and experimental quantum computing bring us closer to scalable quantum computing devices. This makes the need for protocols that verify the correct functionality of quantum operations timely and has led to the field of quantum verification. In this paper we address key challenges to make quantum verification protocols applicable to experimental implementations. We prove the robustness of the single server verifiable universal blind quantum computing protocol of Fitzsimons and Kashefi (2012 arXiv:1203.5217) in the most general scenario. This includes the case where the purification of the deviated input state is in the hands of an adversarial server. The proved robustness property allows the composition of this protocol with a device-independent state tomography protocol that we give, which is based on the rigidity of CHSH games as proposed by Reichardt et al (2013 Nature 496 456-60). The resulting composite protocol has lower round complexity for the verification of entangled quantum servers with a classical verifier and, as we show, can be made fault tolerant.

We present a device-independent protocol for oblivious transfer (DIOT) and analyse its security under the assumption that the receiver’s quantum storage is bounded during protocol execution and that the device behaves independently and identically in each round. We additionally require that, for each device component, the input corresponding to the choice of measurement basis, and the resulting output, is communicated only with the party holding that component. Our protocol is everlastingly secure and, compared to previous DIOT protocols, it is less strict about the non-communication assumptions that are typical from protocols that use Bell inequality violations; instead, the device-independence comes from a protocol for self-testing of a single (quantum) device which makes use of a post-quantum computational assumption.

The relationship between correlations and entanglement has played a major role in understanding quantum theory since the work of Einstein et al (1935 Phys. Rev. 47 777-80). Tsirelson proved that Bell states, shared among two parties, when measured suitably, achieve the maximum non-local correlations allowed by quantum mechanics (Cirel'son 1980 Lett. Math. Phys. 4 93-100). Conversely, Reichardt et al showed that observing the maximal correlation value over a sequence of repeated measurements, implies that the underlying quantum state is close to a tensor product of maximally entangled states and, moreover, that it is measured according to an ideal strategy (Reichardt et al 2013 Nature 496 456-60). However, this strong rigidity result comes at a high price, requiring a large number of entangled pairs to be tested. In this paper, we present a significant improvement in terms of the overhead by instead considering quantum steering where the device of the one side is trusted. We first demonstrate a robust one-sided device-independent version of self-testing, which characterises the shared state and measurement operators of two parties up to a certain bound. We show that this bound is optimal up to constant factors and we generalise the results for the most general attacks. This leads us to a rigidity theorem for maximal steering correlations. As a key application we give a one-sided device-independent protocol for verifiable delegated quantum computation, and compare it to other existing protocols, to highlight the cost of trust assumptions. Finally, we show that under reasonable assumptions, the states shared in order to run a certain type of verification protocol must be unitarily equivalent to perfect Bell states.

Self-testing allows us to determine, through classical interaction only, whether some players in a non-local game share particular quantum states. Most work on self-testing has concentrated on developing tests for small states like one pair of maximally entangled qubits, or on tests where there is a separate player for each qubit, as in a graph state. Here we consider the case of testing many maximally entangled pairs of qubits shared between two players. Previously such a test was shown where testing is sequential, i.e., one pair is tested at a time. Here we consider the parallel case where all pairs are tested simultaneously, giving considerably more power to dishonest players. We derive sufficient conditions for a self-test for many maximally entangled pairs of qubits shared between two players and also two constructions for self-tests where all pairs are tested simultaneously.

Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) enables the sender to directly transmit secure messages to the receiver via a quantum channel without the need for keys. Device-independent (DI) and measurement-device-independent (MDI) QSDC protocols theoretically enhance the practical security of QSDC. However, DI QSDC requires extremely high global detection efficiency and has a limited secure communication distance. Both DI and MDI QSDC protocols depend on high-quality entanglement. Current entanglement sources, which generate entangled photon pairs with low efficiency, significantly reduce their practical communication capabilities. In this paper, we propose a single-photon-based receiver-device-independent (RDI) QSDC protocol. This protocol relies solely on the practical single-photon source, which is nearly on-demand with current technology, and treats all receiving devices on both ends of the communication as “black boxes”. The security of the message is ensured only through the observed statistics. We also develop a numerical method to simulate the protocol’s performance under practical noisy communication conditions. The RDI QSDC protocol provides the same security level as MDI QSDC. Compared to DI and MDI QSDC, RDI QSDC has several advantages. First, it uses single-photon sources and single-photon measurements, which allow it to achieve practical communication efficiency approximately 3415 times greater than that of DI QSDC, while being easier to implement. The entire protocol is feasible with current technology. Second, it offers higher robustness to photon loss and better noise tolerance than DI QSDC, enabling a secure communication distance approximately 26 times greater than that of DI QSDC. Based on these advantages, the RDI QSDC protocol presents a promising approach for achieving highly secure and efficient QSDC in the near future.