Security of Quantum Key Distribution with Realistic Devices

Abstract

We simulate quantum key distribution (QKD) experimental setups and give out some improvement for QKD procedures. A new data post-processing protocol is introduced, mainly including error correction and privacy amplification. This protocol combines the ideas of GLLP and the decoy states, which essentially only requires to turn up and down the source power. We propose a practical way to perform the decoy state method, which mainly follows the idea of Lo's decoy state. A new data post-processing protocol is then developed for the QKD scheme with the decoy state. We first study the optimal expected photon number mu of the source for the improved QKD scheme. We get the new optimal mu=O(1) comparing with former mu=O(eta), where eta is the overall transmission efficiency. With this protocol, we can then improve the key generation rate from quadratic of transmission efficiency O(eta2) to O(eta). Based on the recent experimental setup, we obtain the maximum secure transmission distance of over 140 km.