Quantum key distribution protocol with pseudorandom bases
This work addresses the need for more efficient secure communication in quantum cryptography, though it is incremental as it builds on existing QKD protocols with a specific enhancement.
The authors tackled the problem of improving secret key rates in quantum key distribution by introducing a novel protocol that uses pseudorandom bases for quantum state preparation, demonstrating that it achieves better secret key rates than BB84 and asymmetric BB84 protocols for single-photon sources.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers a way for establishing information-theoretically secure communications. An important part of QKD technology is a high-quality random number generator (RNG) for quantum states preparation and for post-processing procedures. In the present work, we consider a novel class of prepare-and-measure QKD protocols, utilizing additional pseudorandomness in the preparation of quantum states. We study one of such protocols and analyze its security against the intercept-resend attack. We demonstrate that, for single-photon sources, the considered protocol gives better secret key rates than the BB84 and the asymmetric BB84 protocol. However, the protocol strongly requires single-photon sources.