Eavesdropping on practical quantum cryptography

DOI10.1080/0950034031000077542zbMATH Open1106.81331arXivquant-ph/0211155OpenAlexW4229843012MaRDI QIDQ4817801FDOQ4817801

Authors: Mark S. Williamson, Vlatko Vedral 

Publication date: 21 September 2004

Abstract: Practical implementations of quantum cryptography use attenuated laser pulses as the signal source rather than single photons. The channels used to transmit are also lossy. Here we give a simple derivation of two beam-splitting attacks on quantum cryptographic systems using laser pulses, either coherent or mixed states with any mean photon number. We also give a simple derivation of a photon-number splitting attack, the most advanced, both in terms of performance and technology required. We find bounds on the maximum disturbance for a given mean photon number and observed channel transmission efficiency for which a secret key can be distilled. We start by reviewing two incoherent attacks that can be used on single photon quantum cryptographic systems. These results are then adapted to systems that use laser pulses and lossy channels.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0211155

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantum cryptography (quantum-theoretic aspects) (81P94)

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