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Information-theoretic limits on undetectable parameter-estimation attacks in continuous-variable quantum key distribution

Quantum Physics 2026-07-25 v1

Abstract

We formalize side-channel detection in Gaussian-modulated continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) as a certificate-forgery hypothesis test and identify its detectability with an information-theoretic rate. Relative to a set M\mathcal{M} of trusted, real-time-monitored observables, the forgery- detectability rate gMg_{\mathcal M} of a benign-statistics certificate is the missed-detection Stein exponent. We prove a dichotomy: gMg_{\mathcal M} is monotone and strictly positive in the leaked Holevo information when the shot- noise unit is trusted, and identically zero otherwise, recovering local- oscillator and calibration attacks as the degenerate case. Monotonicity yields a certificate reusability rate bounding the Holevo leakage compatible with an undetected certificate over NPEN_{\mathrm{PE}} estimation rounds, via the non- asymptotic bound εPEexp(NPEψ(r))\varepsilon_{\mathrm{PE}}\le\exp(-N_{\mathrm{PE}}\psi(r)) whose near-threshold expansion matches the Gaussian confidence-interval scaling of standard finite-size analyses. We then give a composable finite-size key- length statement under collective Gaussian attacks, whose worst-case Holevo term is the reusability rate and whose parameter-estimation failure probability is bounded by the Stein exponent at every block length. Both results are unconditional in the trusted-correlation model, where strict monotonicity of the Holevo leakage in the excess noise follows from a noise-injection argument; for general M\mathcal{M} they hold under an explicit no-spurious-local-minima condition on the divergence landscape, verifiable by low-dimensional inspection. Convexity of the rate further assumes a numerically supported concavity of the Holevo bound, the sole numerical ingredient; proof status is delimited throughout.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.24855,
  title  = {Information-theoretic limits on undetectable parameter-estimation attacks in continuous-variable quantum key distribution},
  author = {Agung Trisetyarso and Lenny Putri Yulianti and Kridanto Surendro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.24855},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

12 pages, 11 figures