arXiv subjects

Karol Horodecki

Publications and source records attributed to Karol Horodecki.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Upper bounds on device-independent quantum key distribution rates in static and dynamic scenarios

In this work, we develop upper bounds for key rates for device-independent quantum key distribution (DI-QKD) protocols and devices. We study the reduced cc-squashed entanglement and show that it is a convex functional. As a result, we show that the convex hull of the currently known bounds is a tighter upper bound on the device-independent key rates of standard CHSH-based protocol. We further provide tighter bounds for DI-QKD key rates achievable by any protocol applied to the CHSH-based device. This bound is based on reduced relative entropy of entanglement optimized over decompositions into local and non-local parts. In the dynamical scenario of quantum channels, we obtain upper bounds for device-independent private capacity for the CHSH based protocols. We show that the device-independent private capacity for the CHSH based protocols on depolarizing and erasure channels is limited by the secret key capacity of dephasing channels.

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arXiv2021

Secure communication over generalised quantum multiple access channels

We investigate the security of generalized quantum multiple-access channels. We provide the formula for the achievable rate region of secure communication in the scenario of two senders and a single receiver. We explicitly specify a protocol for secure communication in this scenario, which employs superdense coding. The protocol is based on the distribution of a tripartite GHZ state. It allows for both symmetric and asymmetric key distribution whereby one of the senders can have twice the capacity of the other sender. We prove the security of the protocol against general quantum attacks, analyze different strategies of the eavesdropper and compute the key rate for a range of noisy quantum channels.

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arXiv2021

Upper bounds on device-independent quantum key distribution

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a method that distributes a secret key to a sender and a receiver by the transmission of quantum particles (e.g. photons). Device-independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD) is a version of QKD with a stronger notion of security, in that the sender and receiver base their protocol only on the statistics of input and outputs of their devices as inspired by Bell's theorem. We study the rate at which DIQKD can be carried out for a given bipartite quantum state distributed between the sender and receiver or a quantum channel connecting them. We provide upper bounds on the achievable rate going beyond upper bounds possible for QKD. In particular, we construct states and channels where the QKD rate is significant while the DIQKD rate is negligible. This gap is illustrated for a practical case arising when using standard post-processing techniques for entangled two-qubit states.

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arXiv2021

Hybrid quantum network design against unauthorized secret-key generation, and its memory cost

A significant number of servers that constitute the Internet are to provide private data via private communication channels to mutually anonymous registered users. Such are the servers of banks, hospitals that provide cloud storage and many others. Replacing communication channels by maximally entangled states is a promising idea for the quantum-secured Internet (QI). While it is an important idea for large distances secure communication, for the case of the mentioned class of servers pure entanglement based solution is not only unnecessary but also opens a threat. A crack stimulating a node to generate secure connections via entanglement swapping between two hackers can cause uncontrolled consumption of resources. Turning into positive a recently proven no-go result by S. Bäuml et al. [15], we propose a natural countermeasure against this threat. The solution bases on connections between hub-nodes and end-users realized with states that contain secure key but do not allow for swapping of this key.We then focus on the study of the quantum memory cost of such a scheme and prove a fundamental lower bound on its memory overhead. In particular, we show that to avoid the possibility of entanglement swapping, it is necessary to store at least twice as much memory than it is the case in standard quantum-repeater-based network design. For schemes employing either states with positive partial transposition that approximates certain privates states or private states hardly distinguishable from their attacked versions, we derive much tighter lower bounds on required memory. Our considerations yield upper bounds on a two-way repeater rate for states with positive partial transposition (PPT), which approximates strictly irreducible private states. As a byproduct, we provide a lower bound on the trace distance between PPT and private states, shown previously only for private bits.

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arXiv2020

A No-go theorem for device-independent security in relativistic causal theories

A crucial task for secure communication networks is to determine the minimum of physical requirements to certify a cryptographic protocol. A widely accepted candidate for certification is the principle of relativistic causality which is equivalent to the disallowance of causal loops. Contrary to expectations, we demonstrate how correlations allowed by relativistic causality could be exploited to break security for a broad class of multi-party protocols (all modern protocols belong to this class). As we show, deep roots of this dramatic lack of security lies in the fact that unlike in previous (quantum or no-signaling) scenarios the new theory "decouples" the property of extremality and that of statistical independence on environment variables. Finally, we find out, that the lack of security is accompanied by some advantage: the new correlations can reduce communication complexity better than the no-signaling ones. As a tool for analysis of this advantage, we characterize relativistic causal polytope by its extremal points in the simplest multi-party scenario that goes beyond the no-signaling paradigm.

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arXiv2020

Practical No-Signalling proof Randomness Amplification using Hardy paradoxes and its experimental implementation

Device-Independent (DI) security is the best form of quantum cryptography, providing information-theoretic security based on the very laws of nature. In its highest form, security is guaranteed against adversaries limited only by the no-superluminal signalling rule of relativity. The task of randomness amplification, to generate secure fully uniform bits starting from weakly random seeds, is of both cryptographic and foundational interest, being important for the generation of cryptographically secure random numbers as well as bringing deep connections to the existence of free-will. DI no-signalling proof protocols for this fundamental task have thus far relied on esoteric proofs of non-locality termed pseudo-telepathy games, complicated multi-party setups or high-dimensional quantum systems, and have remained out of reach of experimental implementation. In this paper, we construct the first practically relevant no-signalling proof DI protocols for randomness amplification based on the simplest proofs of Bell non-locality and illustrate them with an experimental implementation in a quantum optical setup using polarised photons. Technically, we relate the problem to the vast field of Hardy paradoxes, without which it would be impossible to achieve amplification of arbitrarily weak sources in the simplest Bell non-locality scenario consisting of two parties choosing between two binary inputs. Furthermore, we identify a deep connection between proofs of the celebrated Kochen-Specker theorem and Hardy paradoxes that enables us to construct Hardy paradoxes with the non-zero probability taking any value in $(0,1]$. Our methods enable us, under the fair-sampling assumption of the experiment, to realize up to $25$ bits of randomness in $20$ hours of experimental data collection from an initial private source of randomness $0.1$ away from uniform.

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arXiv2020

Information backflow may not indicate quantum memory

We analyze recent approaches to quantum Markovianity and how they relate to the proper definition of quantum memory. We point out that the well-known criterion of information backflow may not correctly report character of the memory falsely signaling its quantumness. Therefore, as a complement to the well-known criteria, we propose several concepts of elementary dynamical maps. Maps of this type do not increase distinguishability of states which are indistinguishable by von Neumann measurements in a given basis. Those notions and convexity allows us to define general classes of processes without quantum memory in a weak and strong sense. Finally, we provide a practical characterization of the most intuitive class in terms of the new concept of witness of quantum information backflow.

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arXiv2020

Gadget structures in proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem

The Kochen-Specker theorem is a fundamental result in quantum foundations that has spawned massive interest since its inception. We show that within every Kochen-Specker graph, there exist interesting subgraphs which we term $01$-gadgets, that capture the essential contradiction necessary to prove the Kochen-Specker theorem, i.e,. every Kochen-Specker graph contains a $01$-gadget and from every $01$-gadget one can construct a proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem. Moreover, we show that the $01$-gadgets form a fundamental primitive that can be used to formulate state-independent and state-dependent statistical Kochen-Specker arguments as well as to give simple constructive proofs of an "extended" Kochen-Specker theorem first considered by Pitowsky.

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arXiv2020

Limitations for private randomness repeaters

Cryptographic protocols are often based on the two main resources: private randomness and private key. In this paper, we develop a relationship between these two resources. First, we show that any state containing perfect, directly accessible, private key (a private state) is a particular case of the state containing perfect, directly accessible, private randomness (an independent state). We then demonstrate a fundamental limitation on the possibility of transferring the privacy of random bits in quantum networks with an intermediate repeater station. More precisely, we provide an upper bound on the rate of repeated randomness in this scenario, similar to the one derived for private key repeaters. This bound holds for states with positive partial transposition. We further demonstrate the power of this upper bound by showing a gap between the localisable and the repeated private randomness for separable Werner states. In the case of restricted class of operations, we provide also a bound on repeated randomness which holds for arbitrary states.

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arXiv2019

Distributed Private Randomness Distillation

We develop the resource theory of private randomness extraction in the distributed and device-dependent scenario. We begin by introducing the notion of independent random bits, which are bipartite states containing ideal private randomness for each party, and motivate the natural set of free operations. As a conceptual tool, we introduce Virtual Quantum State Merging, which is essentially the flip side of Quantum State Merging, without communication. We focus on the bipartite case and find the rate regions achievable in different settings. Surprisingly, it turns out that local noise can boost randomness extraction. As a consequence of our analysis, we resolve a long-standing problem by giving an operational interpretation for the reverse coherent information (up to a constant term $\log d$) as the number of private random bits obtained by sending quantum states from one honest party (server) to another one (client) via the eavesdropped quantum channel.

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arXiv2019

Semi-Device Independent Quantum Money

The seminal idea of quantum money not forgeable due to laws of Quantum Mechanics proposed by Stephen Wiesner, has laid foundations for the Quantum Information Theory in early '70s. Recently, several other schemes for quantum currencies have been proposed, all however relying on the assumption that the mint does not cooperate with the counterfeiter. Drawing inspirations from the semi-device independent quantum key distribution protocol, we introduce the first scheme of quantum money with this assumption partially relaxed, along with the proof of its unforgeability. Significance of this protocol is supported by an impossibility result, which we prove, stating that there is no both fully device independent and secure money scheme. Finally, we formulate a quantum analogue of the Oresme-Copernicus-Gresham's law of economy.

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arXiv2018

Amplifying the randomness of weak sources correlated with devices

The problem of device-independent randomness amplification against no-signaling adversaries has so far been studied under the assumption that the weak source of randomness is uncorrelated with the (quantum) devices used in the amplification procedure. In this work, we relax this assumption, and reconsider the original protocol of Colbeck and Renner using a Santha-Vazirani (SV) source. To do so, we introduce an SV-like condition for devices, namely that any string of SV source bits remains weakly random conditioned upon any other bit string from the same SV source and the outputs obtained when this further string is input into the devices. Assuming this condition, we show that a quantum device using a~singlet state to violate the chained Bell inequalities leads to full randomness in the asymptotic scenario of a large number of settings, for a restricted set of SV sources (with $0 \leq \varepsilon < (2^{(1/12)} - 1)/(2(2^{(1/12)} + 1)) \approx 0.0144$). We also study a device-independent protocol that allows for correlations between the sequence of boxes used in the protocol and the SV source bits used to choose the particular box from whose output the randomness is obtained. Assuming the SV-like condition for devices, we show that the honest parties can achieve amplification of the weak source, for the parameter range $0 \leq \varepsilon<0.0132$, against a class of attacks given as a mixture of product box sequences, made of extremal no-signaling boxes, with additional symmetry conditions. Composable security proof against this class of attacks is provided.

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arXiv2016

Randomness amplification against no-signaling adversaries using two devices

Recently, a physically realistic protocol amplifying the randomness of Santha-Vazirani sources producing cryptographically secure random bits was proposed; however for reasons of practical relevance, the crucial question remained open whether this can be accomplished under the minimal conditions necessary for the task. Namely, is it possible to achieve randomness amplification using only two no-signaling components and in a situation where the violation of a Bell inequality only guarantees that some outcomes of the device for specific inputs exhibit randomness? Here, we solve this question and present a device-independent protocol for randomness amplification of Santha-Vazirani sources using a device consisting of two non-signaling components. We show that the protocol can amplify any such source that is not fully deterministic into a fully random source while tolerating a constant noise rate and prove the composable security of the protocol against general no-signaling adversaries. Our main innovation is the proof that even the partial randomness certified by the two-party Bell test (a single input-output pair ($\textbf{u}^*, \textbf{x}^*$) for which the conditional probability $P(\textbf{x}^* | \textbf{u}^*)$ is bounded away from $1$ for all no-signaling strategies that optimally violate the Bell inequality) can be used for amplification. We introduce the methodology of a partial tomographic procedure on the empirical statistics obtained in the Bell test that ensures that the outputs constitute a linear min-entropy source of randomness. As a technical novelty that may be of independent interest, we prove that the Santha-Vazirani source satisfies an exponential concentration property given by a recently discovered generalized Chernoff bound.

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arXiv2016

Random access codes and non-local resources

It is known that a PR-BOX (PR), a non-local resource and $(2\rightarrow 1)$ random access code (RAC), a functionality (wherein Alice encodes 2 bits into 1 bit message and Bob learns one of randomly chosen Alice's inputs) are equivalent under the no-signaling condition. In this work we introduce generalizations to PR and $(2\rightarrow 1)$ RAC and study their inter-convertibility. We introduce generalizations based on the number of inputs provided to Alice, $B_n$-BOX and $(n\rightarrow 1)$ RAC. We show that a $B_n$-BOX is equivalent to a no-signaling $(n\rightarrow 1)$ RACBOX (RB). Further we introduce a signaling $(n\rightarrow 1)$ RB which cannot simulate a $B_n$-BOX. Finally to quantify the same we provide a resource inequality between $(n\rightarrow 1)$ RB and $B_n$-BOX, and show that it is saturated. As an application we prove that one requires atleast $(n-1)$ PRs supplemented with a bit of communication to win a $(n\rightarrow 1)$ RAC. We further introduce generalizations based on the dimension of inputs provided to Alice and the message she sends, $B_n^d(+)$-BOX, $B_n^d(-)$-BOX and $(n\rightarrow 1,d)$ RAC ($d>2$). We show that no-signaling condition is not enough to enforce strict equivalence in the case of $d>2$. We introduce classes of no-signaling $(n\rightarrow 1,d)$ RB, one which can simulate $B_n^d(+)$-BOX, second which can simulate $B_n^d(-)$-BOX and third which cannot simulate either. Finally to quantify the same we provide a resource inequality between $(n\rightarrow 1,d)$ RB and $B_n^d(+)$-BOX, and show that it is saturated.

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arXiv2015

Linear game non-contextuality and Bell inequalities - a graph-theoretic approach

We study the classical and quantum values of one- and two-party linear games, an important class of unique games that generalizes the well-known XOR games to the case of non-binary outcomes. We introduce a ``constraint graph" associated to such a game, with the constraints defining the linear game represented by an edge-coloring of the graph. We use the graph-theoretic characterization to relate the task of finding equivalent games to the notion of signed graphs and switching equivalence from graph theory. We relate the problem of computing the classical value of single-party anti-correlation XOR games to finding the edge bipartization number of a graph, which is known to be MaxSNP hard, and connect the computation of the classical value of more general XOR-d games to the identification of specific cycles in the graph. We construct an orthogonality graph of the game from the constraint graph and study its Lovász theta number as a general upper bound on the quantum value even in the case of single-party contextual XOR-d games. Linear games possess appealing properties for use in device-independent applications such as randomness of the local correlated outcomes in the optimal quantum strategy. We study the possibility of obtaining quantum algebraic violation of these games, and show that no finite linear game possesses the property of pseudo-telepathy leaving the frequently used chained Bell inequalities as the natural candidates for such applications. We also show this lack of pseudo-telepathy for multi-party XOR-type inequalities involving two-body correlation functions.

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arXiv2015

Bounds on quantum nonlocality via partial transposition

We explore the link between two concepts: the level of violation of a Bell inequality by a quantum state and discrimination between two states by means of restricted classes of operations, such as local operations and classical communication (LOCC) and separable ones. For any bipartite Bell inequality, we show that its value on a given quantum state cannot exceed the classical bound by more than the maximal quantum violation shrunk by a factor related to distinguishability of this state from the separable set by means of some restricted class of operations. We then consider the general scenarios where the parties are allowed to perform a local pre-processing of many copies of the state before the Bell test (asymptotic and hidden-nonlocality scenarios). We define the asymptotic relative entropy of nonlocality and, for PPT states, we bound this quantity by the relative entropy of entanglement of the partially transposed state. The bounds are strong enough to limit the use of certain states containing private key in the device-independent scenario.

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arXiv2015

Axiomatic approach to contextuality and nonlocality

We present a unified axiomatic approach to contextuality and non-locality based on the fact that both are resource theories. In those theories the main objects are consistent boxes, which can be transformed by certain operations to achieve certain tasks. The amount of resource is quantified by appropriate measures of the resource. Following recent paper [J.I. de Vicente, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. {\bf 47}, 424017 (2014)], and recent development of abstract approach to resource theories, such as entanglement theory, we propose axioms and welcome properties for operations and measures of resources. As one of the axioms of the measure we propose the asymptotic continuity: the measure should not differ on boxes that are close to each other by more than the distance with a factor depending logarithmically on the dimension of the boxes. We prove that relative entropy of contextuality is asymptotically continuous. Considering another concept from entanglement theory---the convex roof of a measure---we prove that for some non-local and contextual polytopes, the relative entropy of a resource is upper bounded up to a constant factor by the cost of the resource. Finally, we prove that providing a measure $X$ of resource does not increase under allowed class of operations, such as e.g. wirings, the maximal distillable resource which can be obtained by these operations is bounded from above by the value of $X$ up to a constant factor. We show explicitly which axioms are used in the proofs of presented results, so that analogous results may remain true in other resource theories with analogous axioms. We also make use of the known distillation protocol of bipartite nonlocality to show how contextual resources can be distilled.

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arXiv2015

On the non-locality of tripartite non-signaling boxes emerging from wirings

It has been recently shown, that some of the tripartite boxes admitting bilocal decomposition, lead to non-locality under wiring operation applied to two of the subsystems [R. Gallego et al. Physical Review Letters 109, 070401 (2012)]. In the following, we study this phenomenon quantitatively. Basing on the known classes of boxes closed under wirings, we introduced multipartite monotones which are counterparts of bipartite ones - the non-locality cost and robustness of non-locality. We then provide analytical lower bounds on both the monotones in terms of the Maximal Non-locality which can be obtained by Wirings (MWN). We prove also upper bounds for the MWN of a given box, based on the weight of boxes signaling in a particular direction, that appear in its bilocal decomposition. We study different classes of partially local boxes and find MWN for each class, using Linear Programming. We identify also the wirings which lead to MWN and exhibit that some of them can serve as a witness of certain classes. We conclude with example of partially local boxes being analogue of quantum states that allow to distribute entanglement in separable manner.

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