Effects of depolarizing quantum channels on BB84 and SARG04 quantum cryptography protocols

TL;DR

This paper experimentally investigates how depolarizing quantum channels affect the performance of BB84 and SARG04 quantum cryptography protocols, revealing that BB84 is more robust under real-world depolarization conditions.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental comparison of BB84 and SARG04 protocols under depolarizing channels, highlighting BB84's superior robustness in practical scenarios.

Findings

BB84 outperforms SARG04 in depolarized channels

Depolarization significantly impacts protocol performance

Experimental validation of theoretical predictions

Abstract

We report experimental studies on the effect of the depolarizing quantum channel on weak-pulse BB84 and SARG04 quantum cryptography. The experimental results show that, in real world conditions in which channel depolarization cannot be ignored, BB84 should perform better than SARG04.