arXiv subjects

H. F. Chau

Publications and source records attributed to H. F. Chau.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Proof-of-principle experimental realization of a qubit-like qudit-based quantum key distribution scheme

In comparison to qubit-based protocols, qudit-based quantum key distribution (QKD) ones gen- erally allow two cooperative parties to share unconditionally secure keys under a higher channel noise. However, it is very hard to prepare and measure the required quantum states in qudit-based protocols in general. One exception is the recently proposed highly error tolerant qudit-based proto- col known as the Chau15 [1]. Remarkably, the state preparation and measurement in this protocol can be done relatively easily since the required states are phase encoded almost like the diagonal basis states of a qubit. Here we report the first proof-of-principle demonstration of the Chau15 protocol. One highlight of our experiment is that its post-processing is based on practical one-way manner, while the original proposal in Ref. [1] relies on complicated two-way post-processing, which is a great challenge in experiment. In addition, by manipulating time-bin qudit and measurement with a variable delay interferometer, our realization is extensible to qudit with high-dimensionality and confirms the experimental feasibility of the Chau15 protocol.

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arXiv2017

Experimentally Feasible Quantum-Key-Distribution Scheme Using Qubit-Like Qudits And Its Comparison With Existing Qubit- and Qudit-Based Protocols

Recently, Chau introduced an experimentally feasible qudit-based quantum-key-distribution (QKD) scheme. In that scheme, one bit of information is phase encoded in the prepared state in a $2^n$-dimensional Hilbert space in the form $(|i\rangle\pm|j\rangle)/\sqrt{2}$ with $n\ge 2$. For each qudit prepared and measured in the same two-dimensional Hilbert subspace, one bit of raw secret key is obtained in the absence of transmission error. Here we show that by modifying the basis announcement procedure, the same experimental setup can generate $n$ bits of raw key for each qudit prepared and measured in the same basis in the noiseless situation. The reason is that in addition to the phase information, each qudit also carries information on the Hilbert subspace used. The additional $(n-1)$ bits of raw key comes from a clever utilization of this extra piece of information. We prove the unconditional security of this modified protocol and compare its performance with other existing provably secure qubit- and qudit-based protocols on market in the one-way classical communication setting. Interestingly, we find that for the case of $n=2$, the secret key rate of this modified protocol using non-degenerate random quantum code to perform one-way entanglement distillation is equal to that of the six-state scheme.

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arXiv2016

Qudit-Based Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution Using Linear Optics

Measurement-device-independent (MDI) method is a way to solve all detector side-channel attacks in quantum key distribution (QKD). However, very little work has been done on experimentally feasible qudit-based MDI-QKD scheme although the famous (qudit-based) round-robin differential-phase-shift (RRDPS) scheme is vulnerable to attacks on uncharacterized detectors. Here we report a mother-of-all QKD protocol on which all provably secure qubit-based QKD schemes known to date including the RRDPS and the so-called Chau15 schemes are based. We also report an experimentally feasible MDI system via optical implementation of entanglement swapping based on a recent qudit teleportation proposal by Goyal et al. In this way, we show that all provably secure qudit-based QKD schemes discovered to date can be made MDI.

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arXiv2015

Quantum Key Distribution Using Qudits Each Encoding One Bit Of Raw Key

All known qudit-based prepare-and-measure quantum key distribution (PM-QKD) schemes are more error resilient than their qubit-based counterparts. Their high error resiliency comes partly from the careful encoding of multiple bits of signals used to generate the raw key in each transmitted qudit so that the same eavesdropping attempt causes a higher bit error rate (BER) in the raw key. Here I show that highly error-tolerant PM-QKD schemes can be constructed simply by encoding one bit of classical information in each transmitted qudit in the form $(|i\rangle\pm|j\rangle)/\sqrt{2}$, where $|i\rangle$'s form an orthonormal basis of the $2^n$-dimensional Hilbert space. Moreover, I prove that these schemes can tolerate up to the theoretical maximum of 50\% BER for $n\ge 2$ provided that the raw key is generated under a certain technical condition, making them the most error-tolerant PM-QKD schemes involving the transmission of unentangled finite-dimensional qudits to date. This shows the potential of processing quantum information using lower-dimensional quantum signals encoded in a higher-dimensional quantum state.

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arXiv2015

State-Independent Error-Disturbance Tradeoff For Measurement Operators

In general, classical measurement statistics of a quantum measurement is disturbed by performing an additional incompatible quantum measurement beforehand. Using this observation, we introduce a state-independent definition of disturbance by relating it to the distinguishability problem between two classical statistical distributions --- one resulting from a single quantum measurement and the other from a succession of two quantum measurements. Interestingly, we find an error-disturbance trade-off relation for any measurements in two-dimensional Hilbert space and for measurements with mutually unbiased bases in any finite-dimensional Hilbert space. This relation shows that error should be reduced to zero in order to minimize the sum of error and disturbance. We conjecture that a similar trade-off relation can be generalized to any measurements in an arbitrary finite-dimensional Hilbert space.

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arXiv2014

Solution to time-energy costs of quantum channels

We derive a formula for the time-energy costs of general quantum channels proposed in [Phys. Rev. A 88, 012307 (2013)]. This formula allows us to numerically find the time-energy cost of any quantum channel using positive semidefinite programming. We also derive a lower bound to the time-energy cost for any channels and the exact the time-energy cost for a class of channels which includes the qudit depolarizing channels and projector channels as special cases.

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arXiv2014

No Superluminal Signaling Implies Unconditionally Secure Bit Commitment

Bit commitment (BC) is an important cryptographic primitive for an agent to convince a mutually mistrustful party that she has already made a binding choice of 0 or 1 but only to reveal her choice at a later time. Ideally, a BC protocol should be simple, reliable, easy to implement using existing technologies, and most importantly unconditionally secure in the sense that its security is based on an information-theoretic proof rather than computational complexity assumption or the existence of a trustworthy arbitrator. Here we report such a provably secure scheme involving only one-way classical communications whose unconditional security is based on no superluminal signaling (NSS). Our scheme is inspired by the earlier works by Kent, who proposed two impractical relativistic protocols whose unconditional securities are yet to be established as well as several provably unconditionally secure protocols which rely on both quantum mechanics and NSS. Our scheme is conceptually simple and shows for the first time that quantum communication is not needed to achieve unconditional security for BC. Moreover, with purely classical communications, our scheme is practical and easy to implement with existing telecom technologies. This completes the cycle of study of unconditionally secure bit commitment based on known physical laws.

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arXiv2014

Physical time-energy cost of a quantum process determines its information fidelity

A quantum system can be described and characterized by at least two different concepts, namely, its physical and informational properties. Here, we explicitly connect these two concepts, by equating the time-energy cost which is the product of the largest energy of a Hamiltonian of quantum dynamics and the evolution time, and the entanglement fidelity which is the informational difference between an input state and the corresponding output state produced by a quantum channel characterized by the Hamiltonian. Specifically, the worst-case entanglement fidelity between the input and output states is exactly the cosine of the channel's time-energy cost (except when the fidelity is zero). The exactness of our relation makes a strong statement about the intimate connection between information and physics. Our exact result may also be regarded as a time-energy uncertainty relation for the fastest state that achieves a certain fidelity.

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arXiv2014

Social Judgment Theory Based Model On Opinion Formation, Polarization And Evolution

The dynamical origin of opinion polarization in the real world is an interesting topic physical scientists may help to understand. To properly model the dynamics, the theory must be fully compatible with findings by social psychologists on microscopic opinion change. Here we introduce a generic model of opinion formation with homogeneous agents based on the well-known social judgment theory in social psychology by extending a similar model proposed by Jager and Amblard. The agents' opinions will eventually cluster around extreme and/or moderate opinions forming three phases in a two-dimensional parameter space that describes the microscopic opinion response of the agents. The dynamics of this model can be qualitatively understood by mean-field analysis. More importantly, first-order phase transition in opinion distribution is observed by evolving the system under a slow change in the system parameters, showing that punctuated equilibria in public opinion can occur even in a fully connected social network.

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arXiv2014

Time-Energy Costs of Quantum Measurements

Time and energy of quantum processes are a tradeoff against each other. We propose to ascribe to any given quantum process a time-energy cost to quantify how much computation it performs. Here, we analyze the time-energy costs for general quantum measurements, along a similar line as our previous work for quantum channels, and prove exact and lower bound formulae for the costs. We use these formulae to evaluate the efficiencies of actual measurement implementations. We find that one implementation for a Bell measurement is optimal in time-energy. We also analyze the time-energy cost for unambiguous state discrimination and find evidence that only a finite time-energy cost is needed to distinguish any number of states.

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arXiv2014

Disguising quantum channels by mixing and channel distance trade-off

We consider the reverse problem to the distinguishability of two quantum channels, which we call the disguising problem. Given two quantum channels, the goal here is to make the two channels identical by mixing with some other channels with minimal mixing probabilities. This quantifies how much one channel can disguise as the other. In addition, the possibility to trade off between the two mixing probabilities allows one channel to be more preserved (less mixed) at the expense of the other. We derive lower- and upper-bounds of the trade-off curve and apply them to a few example channels. Optimal trade-off is obtained in one example. We relate the disguising problem and the distinguishability problem by showing the the former can lower and upper bound the diamond norm. We also show that the disguising problem gives an upper bound on the key generation rate in quantum cryptography.

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arXiv2014

Conditions for degradability of tripartite quantum states

Alice, Bob, and Eve share a pure quantum state. We introduce the notion of state degradability by asking whether the joint density of Alice and Eve can be transformed to the joint density of Alice and Bob by processing Eve's part through a quantum channel, in order words, degrading Eve. We prove necessary and sufficient conditions for state degradability and provide an efficient method to quickly rule out degradability for a given state. The problem of determining degradability of states is different from that of quantum channels, although the notion is similar. One application of state degradability is that it can be used to test channel degradability. In particular, the degradability of the output state of a channel obtained from the maximally entangled input state gives information about the degradability of the channel.

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arXiv2013

Time-Energy Measure for Quantum Processes

Quantum mechanics sets limits on how fast quantum processes can run given some system energy through time-energy uncertainty relations, and they imply that time and energy are tradeoff against each other. Thus, we propose to measure the time-energy as a single unit for quantum channels. We consider a time-energy measure for quantum channels and compute lower and upper bounds of it using the channel Kraus operators. For a special class of channels (which includes the depolarizing channel), we can obtain the exact value of the time-energy measure. One consequence of our result is that erasing quantum information requires $\sqrt{(n+1)/n}$ times more time-energy resource than erasing classical information, where $n$ is the system dimension.

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arXiv2013

Quantum Speed Limit With Forbidden Speed Intervals

Quantum mechanics imposes fundamental constraints known as quantum speed limits (QSLs) on the information processing speed of all quantum systems. Every QSL known to date comes from the restriction imposed on the evolution time between two quantum states through the value of a single system observable such as the mean energy relative to its ground state. So far these restrictions only place upper bounds on the information processing speed of a quantum system. Here I report QSLs each with permissible information processing speeds separated by forbidden speed intervals. They are found by a systematic and efficient procedure that takes the values of several compatible system observables into account simultaneously. This procedure generalizes almost all existing QSL proofs; and the new QSLs show a novel first order phase transition in the minimum evolution time.

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arXiv2013

Structural Characterization And Condition For Measurement Statistics Preservation Of A Unital Quantum Operation

We investigate the necessary and sufficient condition for a convex cone of positive semidefinite operators to be fixed by a unital quantum operation $ϕ$ acting on finite-dimensional quantum states. By reducing this problem to the problem of simultaneous diagonalization of the Kraus operators associated with $ϕ$, we can completely characterize the kind of quantum states that are fixed by $ϕ$. Our work has several applications. It gives a simple proof of the structural characterization of a unital quantum operation that acts on finite-dimensional quantum states --- a result not explicitly mentioned in earlier studies. It also provides a necessary and sufficient condition for what kind of measurement statistics is preserved by a unital quantum operation. Finally, our result clarifies and extends the work of Størmer by giving a proof of a reduction theorem on the unassisted and entanglement-assisted classical capacities, coherent information, and minimal output Renyi entropy of a unital channel acting on finite-dimensional quantum state.

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arXiv2012

Relation Between Quantum Speed Limits And Metrics On U(n)

Recently, Chau [Quant. Inform. & Comp. 11, 721 (2011)] found a family of metrics and pseudo-metrics on $n$-dimensional unitary operators that can be interpreted as the minimum resources (given by certain tight quantum speed limit bounds) needed to transform one unitary operator to another. This result is closely related to the weighted $\ell^1$-norm on ${\mathbb R}^n$. Here we generalize this finding by showing that every weighted $\ell^p$-norm on ${\mathbb R}^n$ with $1\le p \le \limitingp$ induces a metric and a pseudo-metric on $n$-dimensional unitary operators with quantum information-theoretic meanings related to certain tight quantum speed limit bounds. Besides, we investigate how far the correspondence between the existence of metrics and pseudo-metrics of this type and the quantum speed limits can go.

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arXiv2012

Entanglement transformation between sets of bipartite pure quantum states using local operations

Alice and Bob are given an unknown initial state chosen from a set of pure quantum states. Their task is to transform the initial state to a corresponding final pure state using local operations only. We prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the existence of such a transformation. We also provide efficient algorithms that can quickly rule out the possibility of transforming a set of initial states to a set of final states.

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arXiv2012

Quantum key distribution with delayed privacy amplification and its application to security proof of a two-way deterministic protocol

Privacy amplification (PA) is an essential post-processing step in quantum key distribution (QKD) for removing any information an eavesdropper may have on the final secret key. In this paper, we consider delaying PA of the final key after its use in one-time pad encryption and prove its security. We prove that the security and the key generation rate are not affected by delaying PA. Delaying PA has two applications: it serves as a tool for significantly simplifying the security proof of QKD with a two-way quantum channel, and also it is useful in QKD networks with trusted relays. To illustrate the power of the delayed PA idea, we use it to prove the security of a qubit-based two-way deterministic QKD protocol which uses four states and four encoding operations.

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