Quantum Communication and Quantum Networking. First International Conference, QuantumComm 2009, Naples, Italy, October 26-30, 2009, Revised Selected Papers

Research Article

Passive Decoy State Quantum Key Distribution

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-11731-2_17,
        author={Marcos Curty and Tobias Moroder and Xiongfeng Ma and Norbert L\'{y}tkenhaus},
        title={Passive Decoy State Quantum Key Distribution},
        proceedings={Quantum Communication and Quantum Networking. First International Conference, QuantumComm 2009, Naples, Italy, October 26-30, 2009, Revised Selected Papers},
        proceedings_a={QUANTUMCOMM},
        year={2012},
        month={10},
        keywords={Quantum cryptography quantum key distribution quantum communication threshold photon detector},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-642-11731-2_17}
    }
    
  • Marcos Curty
    Tobias Moroder
    Xiongfeng Ma
    Norbert Lütkenhaus
    Year: 2012
    Passive Decoy State Quantum Key Distribution
    QUANTUMCOMM
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-11731-2_17
Marcos Curty1,*, Tobias Moroder, Xiongfeng Ma2, Norbert Lütkenhaus
  • 1: University of Vigo
  • 2: University of Waterloo
*Contact email: mcurty@com.uvigo.es

Abstract

The use of decoy states enhances the performance of practical quantum key distribution systems significantly by monitoring the quantum channel in a more detailed way. While active modulation of the intensity of the pulses is an effective way of preparing decoy states in principle, in practice passive preparation might be desirable in some scenarios. Known passive methods involve parametric down-conversion. In this paper we show how phase randomized coherent states can be used for the same purpose. Our method involves only linear optics together with a simple threshold photon detector. The performace is comparable to the active decoy methods.