English

Quantum cryptography with finite resources: unconditional security bound for discrete-variable protocols with one-way post-processing

Quantum Physics 2009-11-13 v2

Abstract

We derive a bound for the security of QKD with finite resources under one-way post-processing, based on a definition of security that is composable and has an operational meaning. While our proof relies on the assumption of collective attacks, unconditional security follows immediately for standard protocols like Bennett-Brassard 1984 and six-states. For single-qubit implementations of such protocols, we find that the secret key rate becomes positive when at least N\sim 10^5 signals are exchanged and processed. For any other discrete-variable protocol, unconditional security can be obtained using the exponential de Finetti theorem, but the additional overhead leads to very pessimistic estimates.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0708.0709,
  title  = {Quantum cryptography with finite resources: unconditional security bound for discrete-variable protocols with one-way post-processing},
  author = {Valerio Scarani and Renato Renner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0708.0709},
  year   = {2009}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:05:01.976Z