Lightweight authenticated quantum key distributions with key recycling

Abstract

Quantum key distribution protocols can help the involved participants share unconditionally secure keys for further communication The quantum key distribution protocols such as BB84 and E91 play an important role in quantum cryptography However most of the existing quantum key distribution protocols have two difficulties in implementation First the involved participants are frequently required to have heavy quantum capabilities such as quantum joint operation quantum register and so on Hence many participants who just have limited quantum capabilities cannot be involved in the quantum key distribution protocols Second a hypothetical authenticated classical channel is used in most of the existing quantum key distribution protocols and this assumed channel does not exist in reality To solve the above problems at the same time this thesis proposes several lightweight authenticated quantum key distribution protocols with key recycling This thesis first analyzes various combinations of lightweight quantum capabilities that a lightweight participant may have Subsequently for each combination a corresponding lightweight authenticated quantum key distribution protocol is proposed By using these proposed protocols the participants who just have limited quantum capabilities do not need to increase or change their quantum capabilities for adapting a specific quantum key distribution protocol anymore They can directly choose an appropriate protocol for sharing keys instead Besides to avoid using the assumed authenticated classical channel all the proposed protocols use pre-shared keys to help the involved participants authenticate with each other Moreover to help the participants who have no pre-shared keys between each other can be involved in the protocols for each proposed lightweight authenticated quantum key distribution protocol this thesis proposes an indirect authenticated version In these indirect authentication protocols the participants can indirectly authenticate with each other and share keys with the help of a semi-honest third party and the third party can obtain nothing about the final shared security key At last the key recycling rate analysis shows that most parts of the pre-shared keys used in the proposed protocols can be recycled for reuse even when an eavesdropping is detected

Date of Award	2021
Original language	English
Supervisor	Tzone-Lih Hwang (Supervisor)