# Semi-Quantum Key Distribution with High Quantum Noise Tolerance

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a semi-quantum key distribution protocol that leverages two-way quantum channels to achieve higher noise tolerance than previous protocols, with implications for practical secure communication.

## Contribution

The paper presents a novel semi-quantum protocol that exploits two-way channels to enhance noise tolerance and provides a comprehensive security analysis against collective attacks.

## Key findings

- Achieves higher noise tolerance than prior SQKD protocols.
- Demonstrates security against collective attacks through information-theoretic analysis.
- Provides comparison with other two-way quantum protocols and BB84 with CAD.

## Abstract

Semi-quantum key distribution protocols are designed to allow two parties to establish a shared secret key, secure against an all-powerful adversary, even when one of the users is restricted to measuring and preparing quantum states in one single basis. While interesting from a theoretical standpoint, these protocols have the disadvantage that a two-way quantum communication channel is necessary which generally limits their theoretical efficiency and noise tolerance. In this paper, we construct a new semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol which actually takes advantage of this necessary two-way channel, and, after performing an information theoretic security analysis against collective attacks, we show it is able to tolerate a channel noise level higher than any prior SQKD protocol to-date. We also compare the noise tolerance of our protocol to other two-way fully quantum protocols, along with BB84 with Classical Advantage Distillation (CAD). We also comment on some practical issues involving semi-quantum key distribution (in particular, concerning the potential complexity in physical implementation of our protocol as compared with other standard QKD protocols). Finally, we develop techniques that can be applied to the security analysis of other (S)QKD protocols reliant on a two-way quantum communication channel.