Quantum secure direct communication with hybrid entanglement

Abstract

Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) can transmit secret messages without keys, making it an important branch of quantum communication. We present a hybrid entanglement-based quantum secure direct communication (HE-QSDC) protocol with simple linear optical elements, combining the benefits of both continuous variables (CV) and discrete variables (DV) encoding. We analyze the security and find that the QSDC protocol has a positive security capacity when the bit error rate is less than 0.073. Compared with previous DV QSDC protocols, our protocol has higher communication efficiency due to performing nearly deterministic Bell-state measurement. On the other hand, compared with CV QSDC protocol, this protocol has higher fidelity with large \alpha. Based on these advantages, our protocol may provide an alternative approach to realize secure communication.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

quantum secure direct communication / hybrid entanglement, Bell-state measurement

References

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Declarations

The authors declare that they have no competing interests and there are no conflicts.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11974189, 12175106 and 92365110), the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. KYCX23-1027), and the Key R&D Program of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2018B030325002).

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