Practical quantum tokens without quantum memories and experimental tests

TL;DR

This paper presents practical, experimentally tested quantum tokens called S-money that do not require quantum memories or long-distance quantum communication, offering secure and instant validation using existing quantum cryptography technology.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate implementable S-money schemes with standard quantum key distribution technology and analyze their security under realistic experimental conditions.

Findings

S-money schemes can be implemented with off-the-shelf quantum key distribution technology.

Security against forgery and privacy can be achieved with realistic experimental imperfections.

Potential for unconditionally secure implementations discussed.

Abstract

Unforgeable quantum money tokens were the first invention of quantum information science, but remain technologically challenging as they require quantum memories and/or long distance quantum communication. More recently, virtual 'S-money' tokens were introduced. These are generated by quantum cryptography, do not require quantum memories or long distance quantum communication, and yet in principle guarantee many of the security advantages of quantum money. Here, we describe implementations of S-money schemes with off-the-shelf quantum key distribution technology, and analyse security in the presence of noise, losses, and experimental imperfection. Our schemes satisfy near instant validation without cross-checking. We show that, given standard assumptions in mistrustful quantum cryptographic implementations, unforgeability and user privacy could be guaranteed with attainable refinements of our off-the-shelf setup. We discuss the possibilities for unconditionally secure (assumption-free) implementations.