Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Quantum Key Distribution Simulation using Entangled Bell States

Presenting Author: Nayana Tiwari, California Polytechnic State University
Contributing Author(s): Dr. Katharina Gillen

To communicate information securely, the sender and recipient of the information need to have a shared, secret key. Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a proposed method for this and takes advantage of the laws of quantum mechanics. The users, Alice and Bob, exchange quantum information in the form of entangled qubits over a quantum channel as well as exchanging measurement information over a classical channel. A successful QKD algorithm will ensure that when an eavesdropper has access to both the quantum and classical information channels, they cannot deduce the key, and they will be detected by the key generators. This presentation will introduce quantum key distribution and explain the implemented simulation of a proposed QKD algorithm using entangled Bell states. The proposed T22 protocol was compared against the more common BB84 QKD protocol. The results show that it takes 3x longer to generate a key of length m bits using the T22 protocol, however the T22 protocol is 36x more secure than BB84.

(Session 5 : Thursday from 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm)