Photon-number-solving Decoy State Quantum Key Distribution

Abstract

In this paper, a photon-number-resolving decoy state quantum key distribution scheme is presented based on recent experimental advancements. A new upper bound on the fraction of counts caused by multiphoton pulses is given. This upper bound is independent of intensity of the decoy source, so that both the signal pulses and the decoy pulses can be used to generate the raw key after verified the security of the communication. This upper bound is also the lower bound on the fraction of counts caused by multiphoton pulses as long as faint coherent sources and high lossy channels are used. We show that Eve's coherent multiphoton pulse (CMP) attack is more efficient than symmetric individual (SI) attack when quantum bit error rate is small, so that CMP attack should be considered to ensure the security of the final key. finally, optimal intensity of laser source is presented which provides 23.9 km increase in the transmission distance. 03.67.Dd