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Quantum conference key agreement (CKA) enables key sharing among multiple trusted users with information-theoretic security. Currently, the key rates of most quantum CKA protocols suffer from the limit of the total efficiency among quantum channels. Inspired by the coherent one-way and twin-field quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, we propose a quantum CKA protocol of three users. Exploiting coherent states with intensity 0 and μ to encode logic bits, our protocol can break the limit. Additionally, the requirements of phase randomization and multiple intensity modulation are removed in our protocol, making its experimental demonstration simple.

Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) can beat the linear bound of repeaterless QKD systems. After the proposal of the original protocol, multiple papers have extended the protocol to prove its security. However, these works are limited to the case where the two channels have equal amount of loss (i.e. are symmetric). In a practical network setting, it is very likely that the channels are asymmetric due to e.g. geographical locations. In this paper we extend the 'simple TF-QKD' protocol to the scenario with asymmetric channels. We show that by simply adjusting the two signal states of the two users (and not the decoy states) they can effectively compensate for channel asymmetry and consistently obtain an order of magnitude higher key rate than previous symmetric protocol. It also can provide 2-3 times higher key rate than the strategy of deliberately adding fibre to the shorter channel until channels have equal loss (and is more convenient as users only need to optimize their laser intensities and do not need to physically modify the channels). We also perform simulation for a practical case with three decoy states and finite data size, and show that our method works well and has a clear advantage over prior art methods with realistic parameters.

Twin-field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) represents a novel QKD approach whose principal merit is to beat the point-to-point private capacity of a lossy quantum channel, thanks to performing single-photon interference in an untrusted node. Indeed, recent security proofs of various TF-QKD type protocols have confirmed that the secret key rate of these schemes scales essentially as the square root of the transmittance of the channel. Here, we focus on the TF-QKD protocol introduced by Curty et al, whose secret key rate is nearly an order of magnitude higher than previous solutions. Its security relies on the estimation of the detection probabilities associated to various photon-number states through the decoy-state method. We derive analytical bounds on these quantities assuming that each party uses either two, three or four decoy intensity settings, and we investigate the protocol's performance in this scenario. Our simulations show that two decoy intensity settings are enough to beat the point-to-point private capacity of the channel, and that the use of four decoys is already basically optimal, in the sense that it almost reproduces the ideal scenario of infinite decoys. We also observe that the protocol seems to be quite robust against intensity fluctuations of the optical pulses prepared by the parties.

Twin-Field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) is a major candidate to be the new benchmark for far-distance QKD implementations, since its secret key rate can overcome the repeaterless bound by means of a simple interferometric measurement. Many variants of the original protocol have been recently proven to be secure. Here, we focus on the TF-QKD type protocol proposed by Curty et al (2019 NPJ Quantum Inf. 5 64), which can provide a high secret key rate and whose practical feasibility has been demonstrated in various recent experiments. The security of this protocol relies on the estimation of certain detection probabilities (yields) through the decoy-state technique. Analytical bounds on the relevant yields have been recently derived assuming that both parties use the same set of decoy intensities, thus providing sub-optimal key rates in asymmetric-loss scenarios. Here we derive new analytical bounds when the parties use either two, three or four independent decoy intensity settings each. With the new bounds we optimize the protocol's performance in asymmetric-loss scenarios and show that the protocol is robust against uncorrelated intensity fluctuations affecting the parties' lasers.

Twin-field quantum key distribution(TF-QKD) protocol and its variants, such as phase-matching QKD, sending-or-not-sending QKD and no phase post-selection TF-QKD(NPP-TFQKD), are very promising for long-distance applications. However, there are still some gaps between theory and practice in these protocols. Concretely, a finite-key size analysis is still missing, and the intensity fluctuations are not taken into account. To address the finite-key size effect, we first give the key rate of NPP-TFQKD against collective attack in finite-key size region and then prove it can be against coherent attack. To deal with the intensity fluctuations, we present an analytical formula of 4-intensity decoy state NPP-TFQKD and a practical intensity fluctuation model. Finally, through detailed simulations, we show NPP-TFQKD can still keep its superiority of high key rate and long achievable distance.

Twin-Field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) and its variants, e.g. phase-maching QKD, sending-or-not-sending QKD, and no phase post-selection TFQKD promise high key rates at long distance to beat the rate distance limit without a repeater. The security proof of these protocols are based on decoy-state method, which is usually performed by actively modulating a variable optical attenuator together with a random number generator in practical experiments, however, active-decoy schemes like this may lead to side channel and could open a security loophole. To enhance the source security of TF-QKD, in this paper, we propose passive-decoy based TF-QKD, in which we combine TF-QKD with the passive-decoy method. And we present a simulation comparing the key generation rate with that in active-decoy, the result shows our scheme performs as good as active decoy TF-QKD, and our scheme could reach satisfactory secret key rates with just a few photon detectors. This shows our work is meaningful in practice.

Quantum digital signatures (QDS) are able to verify the authenticity and integrity of a message in modern communication. However, the current QDS protocols are restricted by the fundamental rate-loss bound and the secure signature distance cannot be further improved. We propose a twin-field quantum digital signature (TF-QDS) protocol with fully discrete phase randomization and investigate its performance under the two-intensity decoy-state setting. For better performance, we optimize intensities of the signal state and the decoy state for each given distance. Numerical simulation results show that our TF-QDS with as few as six discrete random phases can give a higher signature rate and a longer secure transmission distance compared with current quantum digital signatures (QDSs), such as BB84-QDS and measurement-device-independent QDS (MDI-QDS). Moreover, we provide a clear comparison among some possible TF-QDSs constructed by different twin-field key generation protocols (TF-KGPs) and find that the proposed TF-QDS exhibits the best performance. Conclusively, the advantages of the proposed TF-QDS protocol in signature rate and secure transmission distance are mainly due to the single-photon interference applied in the measurement module and precise matching of discrete phases. Besides, our TF-QDS shows the feasibility of experimental implementation with current devices in practical QDS system.

Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) has attracted considerable attention and developed rapidly due to its ability to surpass the fundamental rate-distance limit of QKD. However, the device imperfections may compromise its practical implementations. The goal of this paper is to make it robust against the state preparation flaws (SPFs) and side channels at the light source. We adopt the sending or not-sending (SNS) TF-QKD protocol to accommodate the SPFs and multiple optical modes in the emitted states. We analyze that the flaws of the phase modulation can be overcome by regarding the deviation of the phase as phase noise and eliminating it with the post-selection of phase. To overcome the side channels, we extend the generalized loss-tolerant (GLT) method to the four-intensity decoy-state SNS protocol. Remarkably, by decomposing of the two-mode single-photon states, the phase error rate can be estimated with only four parameters. The practical security of the SNS protocol with flawed and leaky source can be guaranteed. Our results might constitute a crucial step towards guaranteeing the practical implementation of the SNS protocol.

Sending-or-not sending twin-field quantum key distribution (SNS TF-QKD) has the advantage of tolerating large amounts of misalignment errors, and its key rate can exceed the linear bound of repeaterless quantum key distribution. However, the weak randomness in a practical QKD system may lower the secret key rate and limit its achievable communication distance, thus compromising its performance. In this paper, we analyze the effects of the weak randomness on the SNS TF-QKD. The numerical simulation shows that SNS TF-QKD can still have an excellent performance under the weak random condition: the secret key rate can exceed the PLOB boundary and achieve long transmission distances. Furthermore, our simulation results also show that SNS TF-QKD is more robust to the weak randomness loopholes than the BB84 protocol and the measurement-device-independent QKD (MDI-QKD). Our results emphasize that keeping the randomness of the states is significant to the protection of state preparation devices.

As a variant of the twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD), the sending-or-not twin-field quantum key distribution (SNS TF-QKD) is famous for its higher tolerance of misalignment error, in addition to the capacity of surpassing the rate–distance limit. Importantly, the free-space SNS TF-QKD will guarantee the security of the communications between mobile parties. In the paper, we first discuss the influence of atmospheric turbulence (AT) on the channel transmittance characterized by the probability distribution of the transmission coefficient (PDTC). Then, we present a method called prefixed-threshold real-time selection (P-RTS) to mitigate the interference of AT on the free-space SNS TF-QKD. The simulations of the free-space SNS TF-QKD with and without P-RTS are both given for comparison. The results showed that it is possible to share the secure key by using the free-space SNS TF-QKD. Simultaneously, the P-RTS method can make the free-space SNS TF-QKD achieve better and more stable performance at a short distance.