Concatenation of Keys in Quantum Cryptography: How Quantum Entanglement “Penetrates to” Classical Devices

Аннотация

Quantum mechanics admits collective measurements that are related to the projection onto entangled states and allow one to retrieve more classical information from an ensemble of quantum states compared with individual measurements. In this relation, a fundamental question arises for key secrecy in quantum cryptography. Should the secrecy criterion be formulated with regard to all keys distributed both on previous and future quantum key distribution (QKD) sessions, or it suffices to guarantee key secrecy only in an individual QKD session? The study of this question is the subject of the present paper.