PT-Symmetric Quantum State Discrimination for Attack on BB84 Quantum Key Distribution

Yaroslav Balytskyi; Manohar Raavi; Anatoliy Pinchuk; Sang-Yoon Chang

Paper 2021/191

PT-Symmetric Quantum State Discrimination for Attack on BB84 Quantum Key Distribution

Yaroslav Balytskyi, Manohar Raavi, Anatoliy Pinchuk, and Sang-Yoon Chang

Abstract

Quantum Key Distribution or QKD provides symmetric key distribution using the quantum mechanics/channels with new security properties. The security of QKD relies on the difficulty of the quantum state discrimination problem. We discover that the recent developments in PT symmetry can be used to expedite the quantum state discrimination problem and therefore to attack the BB84 QKD scheme. We analyze the security of the BB84 scheme and show that the attack significantly increases the eavesdropping success rate over the previous Hermitian quantum state discrimination approach. We design and analyze the approaches to attack BB84 QKD protocol exploiting an extra degree of freedom provided by the PT-symmetric quantum mechanics.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Public-key cryptography
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords: Quantum Key Distribution BB84 Quantum State Discrimination PT symmetry.
Contact author(s): ybalytsk @ uccs edu
mraavi @ uccs edu
apinchuk @ uccs edu
schang2 @ uccs edu
History: 2021-02-24: received
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2021/191
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2021/191,
      author = {Yaroslav Balytskyi and Manohar Raavi and Anatoliy Pinchuk and Sang-Yoon Chang},
      title = {{PT}-Symmetric Quantum State Discrimination for Attack on {BB84} Quantum Key Distribution},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2021/191},
      year = {2021},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/191}
}