Optimal Experimental Scheme for Bennett-Brassard 1984 Quantum Key Distribution Protocol with Weak Coherent Sources, Noisy and Lossy Channel

Abstract

It is the first scheme which allows the detection apparatus to achieve both the photon number of arriving signals and quantum bit error rate of the multiphoton pulses precisely. We show that the upper bound of the fraction of the tagged multiphoton pulses counts is $\mu $, which is independent of the channel loss and the intensity of the decoy source. Such upper bound is $inherent$ and cannot be reduced any longer as long as the weak coherent scouces and high lossy channel are used. We show that our scheme can be implemented even if the channel loss is very high. A stronger intensity of the pulse source is allowable to improve the rate of quantum key distribution. Both the signal pulses and decoy pulses can be used to generate the raw key after verified the security of the communication. We analyze that our scheme is optimal under today's technology. PACS: 03.67.Dd