Optimal alphabets for noise-resistant quantum cryptography
Сыч Денис Васильевич, B. A. Grishanin, Victor N. Zadkov · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2005
Possibilities of improving critical error rate of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols for different strategies of eavesdropping are investigated. QKD-protocols with discrete alphabets letters of which form regular polyhedrons on the Bloch sphere (tetrahedron octahedron cube icosahedron and dodecahedron which have 4, 6, 8, 12 and 20 vertexes respectively) and QKD-protocol with continuous alphabet which corresponds to the limiting case of a polyhedron with infinitive number of vortexes are considered. Stability of such QKD-protocols to the noise in a quantum channel which is due to the Eve's interference that apply either intercept-receipt or optimal eavesdropping strategy at the individual attacks is studied in detail. It is shown that in case of optimal eavesdropping strategy after bases reconciliation the QKD-protocol with continuous alphabet surpasses all other protocols in terms of noise-resistance. Without basis reconciliation the highest critical error rate have the protocol with tetrahedron-type alphabet.