arXiv subjects

An-Lei Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to An-Lei Zhang.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Reference-frame-independent Quantum secure direct communication

Current quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocols guarantee communication security by estimating the error rates of photons in the X and Z bases. This take the reference frame calibration between communicating parties as a necessary prerequisite. However, in mobile communications scenarios, achieving continuous and accurate reference frame calibration poses significant challenges. To address this issue, this paper proposes a reference-frame-independent (RFI) QSDC protocol. This protocol only requires ensuring the calibration accuracy of one direction of the reference frame, while allowing a misalignment angle $β$ in the other two directions. To improve the protocol's robustness against reference frame fluctuations, we introduce a $β$-independent parameter C into the security analysis framework and rederive the protocol's security bounds. Additionally, we construct a system model and optimize the pulse intensity of the signal states, enabling the protocol to achieve optimal performance under each level of channel attenuation. At an attenuation of 10 dB (corresponding to a communication distance of 25 km), the secrecy message capacities for $β= 0^{ \circ} $ and $45^{ \circ} $ are $8.765 \times10^{-6}$ bit/pulse and $4.150 \times10^{-6}$ bit/pulse, respectively. Compared with the single-photon-based QSDC, the communication distance of the protocol proposed in this paper is significantly extended. When $β= 0^{ \circ} $ and $45^{ \circ} $, the maximum transmission distances of the RFI QSDC protocol are 27.875 km and 26.750 km, which is about 155.9 % and 149.7 % of that of the single-photon-based QSDC protocol.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Device-independent quantum secret sharing with noise preprocessing and postselection

Device-independent (DI) quantum secret sharing (QSS) can relax the security assumptions about the devices' internal workings and provide QSS the highest level of security in theory. The original DI QSS protocol proved its correctness and completeness under a causal independence assumption regarding measurement devices. However, there has been a lack of DI QSS's performance characterization in practical communication situations, which impedes its experimental demonstration and application in the future. Here, we propose a three-partite DI QSS protocol with noise preprocessing and postselection strategies and develop the numerical methods to implement its performance characterization in practical communication situations. The adoption of the noise preprocessing and postselection can reduce DI QSS's global detection efficiency threshold from 96.32% to 94.30% and increase the noise threshold from 7.148% to 8.072%. Our DI QSS protocol has two advantages. First, it is a DI QSS protocol with performance characterization in practical communication situations. Second, the adoption of noise preprocessing and postselection can effectively relax its experimental requirement and enhance the noise resistance. Our DI QSS protocol has potential for future experimental demonstration and application.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Device-independent quantum secret sharing with advanced random key generation basis

Quantum secret sharing (QSS) enables a dealer to securely distribute keys to multiple players. Device-independent (DI) QSS can resist all possible attacks from practical imperfect devices and provide QSS the highest level of security in theory. However, DI QSS requires high-performance devices, especially for low-noise channels, which is a big challenge for its experimental demonstration. We propose a DI QSS protocol with the advanced random key generation basis strategy, which combines the random key generation basis with the noise preprocessing and postselection strategies. We develop the methods to simplify Eve's conditional entropy bound and numerically simulate the key generation rate in an acceptable time. Our DI QSS protocol has some advantages. First, it can increase the noise tolerance threshold from initial 7.147% to 9.231% (29.16% growth), and reduce the global detection efficiency threshold from 96.32% to 93.41%. The maximal distance between any two users increases to 1.43 km, which is about 5.5 times of the initial value. Second, by randomly selecting two basis combinations to generate the key, our DI QSS protocol can reduce the entanglement resource consumption. Our protocol has potential for DI QSS's experimental demonstration and application in the future.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Passive decoy-state quantum secure direct communication with heralded single-photon source

Quantum secure direct communications (QSDC) can directly transmit secret messages through a quantum channel without keys. The imperfect photon source is a major obstacle for QSDC's practical implementation. The unwanted vacuum state and multiphoton components emitted from imperfect photon source largely reduce QSDC's secrecy message capacity and even threaten its security. In the paper, we propose a high-efficient passive decoy-state QSDC protocol with the heralded single-photon source (HSPS). We adopt a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source to emit entangled photon pairs in two spatial modes. By detecting the photons in one of the two correlated spatial modes, we can infer the photon-number distribution of the other spatial mode. Meanwhile, our protocol allows a simple passive preparation of the signal states and decoy state. The HSPS can effectively reduce the probability of vacuum state and increase QSDC's secrecy message capacity. Meanwhile, the passive decoy-state method can simplify the experimental operations and enhance QSDC's robustness against the third-party side-channel attacks. Under the communication distance of 10 km, the secrecy message capacity of our QSDC protocol can achieve 81.85 times with average photon number of 0.1 and 12.79 times with average photon number of 0.01 of that in the original single-photon-based QSDC protocol without the HSPS. Our QSDC protocol has longer maximal communication distance about 17.975 km with average photon number of 0.01. Our work serves as a major step toward the further development of practical passive decoy-state QSDC systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Direct generation of multi-photon hyperentanglement

Multi-photon hyperentangement is of fundamental importance in optical quantum information processing. Existing theory and experiment producing multi-photon hyperentangled states have until now relied on the outcome post-selection, a procedure where only the measurement results corresponding to the desired state are considered. Such approach severely limits the usefulness of the resulting hyperentangled states. We present the protocols of direct production of three- and four-photon hyperentanglement and extend the approach to an arbitrary number of photons through a straightforward cascade of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) sources. The generated multi-photon hyperentangled states are encoded in polarization-spatial modes and polarization-time bin degrees of freedom, respectively. Numerical calculation shows that if the average photon number $μ$ is set to 1, the down conversion efficiency is $7.6*10^{-6}$ and the repetition frequency of the laser is $10^9$ Hz, the number of the generation of three-photon and four-photon hyperentanglement after cascading can reach about $5.78*10^{-2}$ and $4.44*10^{-7}$ pairs per second, respectively. By eliminating the constraints of outcome post-selection, our protocols may represent important progresses for multi-photon hyperentangement generation and providing a pivotal role in future multi-party and high-capacity communication networks.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Memory-assisted measurement-device-independent quantum secret sharing

Measurement-device-independent quantum secret sharing (MDI-QSS) can eliminate all the security loopholes associated with imperfect measurement devices and greatly enhance QS's security under practical experimental condition. MDI-QSS requires each communication user to send single photon to the measurement party for the coincident measurement. However, the unsynchronization of the transmitted photons greatly limits MDI-QSS's practical performance.In the paper, we propose a high-efficient quantum memory (QM)-assisted MDI-QSS protocol, which employs the QM-assisted synchronization of three heralded single-photon sources to efficiently generate three simultaneous single-photon states. The QM constructed with all-optical, polarization-insensitive storage loop has superior performance in terms of bandwidth, storage efficiency, and noise resistance, and is feasible under current experiment conditions. Combining with the decoy-state method, we perform the numerical simulation of the secure key rate in the symmetric model without considering the finite-size effect. The simulation results show that our QM-assisted MDI-QSS protocol exhibit largely improved secure key rate and maximal photon transmission distance compared with all existing MDI-QSS protocols without QM. Our protocol provides a promising way for implementing the high-efficient long-distance MDI-QSS in the near future.

quant-ph↗