CIF: Small: Secure Quantum Communication with Limited Resources

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Developing a communication infrastructure, secure against powerful adversaries (with potential access to advanced quantum computers and capabilities), is of vital importance to our society. Using only classical communication, two parties cannot establish a shared secret key (needed to securely communicate with one another) unless some computational assumption is made on the power of the adversary. However, by carefully using the power of quantum communication, one can achieve unconditional security for this task. This project seeks to understand the capabilities of quantum communication protocols where users have only limited access to quantum functionality while an adversary has unlimited access to such resources. These limitations on the users may be intentional (for instance, to reduce the cost of a quantum communication device), or unintentional (for instance, if a device malfunctions or breaks down during operation). The work in this project will provide new theoretical results of broad application to quantum information science and also pave the way for a future communication infrastructure that is highly secure, practical, and robust to device failure and cost limitations. Besides the theoretical and practical benefits of this work, there are also impacts in this project in educational activities and outreach efforts. The work on this project will enable undergraduate researchers an opportunity to not only contribute to quantum cryptographic research, but to also learn and gain insight into this important field. The future will see a vast increase in the use of quantum technologies, making the education of students in this field all the more important.This project will develop a deeper understanding of the theoretical foundations of secure quantum communication by discovering and analyzing novel quantum cryptographic protocols that utilize participants with limited quantum functionality. The research efforts involve analyzing these limited-resource protocols in a variety of security models (including various forms of device independence) and devise innovative methods for users, despite having limited quantum capabilities, to counter an adversarial agent allowing for highly secure, and efficient, communication systems, even over high-noise channels. To achieve this, the PI will also be developing new quantum information theoretic techniques needed to analyze these protocols in such highly restricted setting.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.