0107042v2

related topics
{states, state, optimal}
{key, protocol, security}
{alice, bob, state}
{let, theorem, proof}
{cos, sin, state}
{phase, path, phys}
{state, states, coherent}
{observables, space, algebra}
{measurement, state, measurements}
{force, casimir, field}

Optimization of coherent attacks in generalizations of the BB84 quantum bit commitment protocol

R. W. Spekkens, T. Rudolph

abstract: It is well known that no quantum bit commitment protocol is unconditionally secure. Nonetheless, there can be non-trivial upper bounds on both Bob's probability of correctly estimating Alice's commitment and Alice's probability of successfully unveiling whatever bit she desires. In this paper, we seek to determine these bounds for generalizations of the BB84 bit commitment protocol. In such protocols, an honest Alice commits to a bit by randomly choosing a state from a specified set and submitting this to Bob, and later unveils the bit to Bob by announcing the chosen state, at which point Bob measures the projector onto the state. Bob's optimal cheating strategy can be easily deduced from well known results in the theory of quantum state estimation. We show how to understand Alice's most general cheating strategy, (which involves her submitting to Bob one half of an entangled state) in terms of a theorem of Hughston, Jozsa and Wootters. We also show how the problem of optimizing Alice's cheating strategy for a fixed submitted state can be mapped onto a problem of state estimation. Finally, using the Bloch ball representation of qubit states, we identify the optimal coherent attack for a class of protocols that can be implemented with just a single qubit. These results provide a tight upper bound on Alice's probability of successfully unveiling whatever bit she desires in the protocol proposed by Aharonov et al., and lead us to identify a qubit protocol with even greater security.

oai_identifier:
oai:arXiv.org:quant-ph/0107042
categories:
quant-ph
comments:
18 pages, 10 figures, numerous typos corrected
arxiv_id:
quant-ph/0107042
journal_ref:
Quantum Inform. Compu. 2, 66 (2002)
created:
2001-07-06
updated:
2002-11-13

Full article ▸

related documents
0005132v2
0603184v1
0404137v1
0411105v1
0506107v1
0605172v3
0411046v2
0406237v1
0508234v2
0212062v3
0312024v2
0504016v2
0308008v2
0509100v3
0603168v1
0701143v2
0201097v1
0208080v2
0305117v3
0605161v2
0308089v2
0601017v4
0602112v1
0510161v1
0501084v2