Semi-Quantum Inspired Lightweight Mediated Quantum Key Distribution with Limited Resource and Untrusted TP

TL;DR

This paper proposes a semi-quantum inspired lightweight mediated quantum key distribution protocol that reduces resource requirements by avoiding Bell state measurements, making it more practical and robust against collective attacks.

Contribution

It introduces a new protocol that relies only on single-photon operations, simplifying implementation and maintaining security with an untrusted third party.

Findings

Protocol is robust under collective attack.

Requires only single-photon operations, reducing complexity.

Eliminates need for Bell state generation and measurement.

Abstract

Semi-quantum inspired lightweight protocol is an important research issue in realization of quantum protocols. However, the previous semi-quantum inspired lightweight mediated quantum key distribution (SQIL-MQKD) protocols need to use the Bell states or measure the Bell states. The generation and measurement of Bell states are more difficult and expensive than those of single photons. To solve this problem, a semi-quantum inspired lightweight mediated quantum key distribution with limited resource protocol is proposed. In this protocol, an untrusted third party (TP) only needs to perform the quantum operations related to single photons and the participants only have to perform two quantum operations: (1) reflecting qubits without disturbance (2) performing unitary operations on single photons. In addition, this protocol is showed to be robust under the collective attack.