Asymmetric twin-field quantum key distribution

TL;DR

This paper improves the security bounds of asymmetric twin-field quantum key distribution by deriving new analytical bounds for decoy-state yields, enhancing performance in asymmetric-loss scenarios and demonstrating robustness against laser fluctuations.

Contribution

It introduces new analytical bounds for decoy-state yields in asymmetric TF-QKD, optimizing protocol performance under realistic conditions.

Findings

Enhanced key rate bounds for asymmetric-loss scenarios.

Robustness against uncorrelated laser intensity fluctuations.

Improved security analysis for practical TF-QKD implementations.

Abstract

Twin-Field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) is a major candidate to be the new benchmark for far-distance QKD implementations, since its secret key rate can overcome the repeaterless bound by means of a simple interferometric measurement. Many variants of the original protocol have been recently proven to be secure. Here, we focus on the TF-QKD type protocol proposed by Curty et al [preprint arXiv:1807.07667], which can provide a high secret key rate and whose practical feasibility has been demonstrated in various recent experiments. The security of this protocol relies on the estimation of certain detection probabilities (yields) through the decoy-state technique. Analytical bounds on the relevant yields have been recently derived assuming that both parties use the same set of decoy intensities, thus providing sub-optimal key rates in asymmetric-loss scenarios. Here we derive new analytical bounds when the parties use either three or four independent decoy intensity settings each. With the new bounds we optimize the protocol's performance in asymmetric-loss scenarios and show that the protocol is robust against uncorrelated intensity fluctuations affecting the parties' lasers.