Quantum Secure Direct Communication Using Entangled Photon Pairs and Local Measurement

We present a scheme for quantum secure direct communication, in which the message is encoded by local unitary operations, transmitted through entangled photons, and deduced from both the sender and receiver＇s local measurement results. In such a scheme, only one pair of entangled photons is consumed, and there is no need to transmit the sender＇s qubit carrying the secret message in a public channel, in order to transmit two-bit classical information.     

A simple scheme to generate x-type four-charge entangled states in circuit QED

We propose a simple scheme to generate x-type four-charge entangled states by using SQUID-based charge qubits capacitively coupled to a transmission line resonator （TLR）. The coupling between the superconducting qubit and the TLR can be effectively controlled by properly adjusting the control parameters of the charge qubit. The experimental feasibility of our scheme is also shown.     

Robust Quantum Secure Direct Communication and Deterministic Secure Quantum Communication over Collective Dephasing Noisy Channel

We propose two schemes for quantum secure direct communication （QSDC） and deterministic secure quantum communication （DSQC） over collective dephasing noisy channel. In our schemes, four special two-qubit states are used as the quantum channel. Since these states are unchanged through the collective dephasing noisy channel, the effect of the channel noise can be perfectly overcome. Simultaneously, the security against some usual attacks can be ensured by utilizing the various checking procedures. Furthermore, these two schemes are feasible with present-day technique.     

Quantum Communication Scheme Using Non-symmetric Quantum Channel

A theoretical quantum communication scheme based on entanglement swapping and superdense coding is proposed with a 3-dimensional Bell state and 2-dimensional Bell state function as quantum channel, quantum key distribution and quantum secure direct communication can be simultaneously accomplished in the scheme. The scheme is secure and has high source capacity. At last, we generalize the quantum communication scheme to d-dimensional quantum channel     

Quantum Secure Direct Intercommunication with Superdense Coding and Entanglement Swapping

A quantum secure direct intercommunication scheme is proposed to exchange directly the communicators＇ secret messages by making ase of swapping entanglement of Bell states. It has great capacity to distribute the secret messages since these messages have been imposed on high-dimensional Bell states via the local unitary operations with superdense coding. The security is ensured by the secure transmission of the travel sequences and the application of entanglement swapping.     

Three-party quantum secret sharing of secure direct communication based on x-type entangled states

Based on x-type entangled states and the two-step protocol [Deng F G, Long G L and Liu X S 2003 Phys. Rev. A 68 042317], a quantum secret sharing protocol of secure direct communication based on x-type entangled states ｜X00〉3214 is proposed. Using some interesting entanglement properties of this state, the agent entirety can directly obtain the secret message from the message sender only if they collaborate together. The security of the scheme is also discussed.     

Quantum Secure Direct Communication and Quantum Sealed-Bid Auction with EPR Pairs

I present a new protocol for three-party quantum secure direct communication （QSDC） with a set of ordered M Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen （EPR） pairs. In the scheme, by performing two unitary operations and Bell state measurements, it is shown that the three legitimate parties can exchange their respective secret message simultaneously. Then I modify it for an experimentally feasible and secure quantum sealed-bid auction （QSBD） protocol. Furthermore, I also analyze th~ecurity of the protocol, and the scheme is proven to be secure against the intercept-and-resend attack, the disturbancb attack and the entangled-and-measure attack.     

Quantum Secure Direct Communication with Authentication Expansion Using Single Photons

In this paper we propose two quantum secure direct communication （QSDC） protocols with authentication. The authentication key expansion method is introduced to improve the life of the keys with security. In the first scheme, the third party, called Trent is introduced to authenticate the users that participate in the communication. He sends the polarized photons in blocks to authenticate communication parties Alice and Bob using the authentication keys. In the communication process, polarized single photons are used to serve as the carriers, which transmit the secret messages directly. The second QSDC process with authentication between two parties is also discussed.     

Quantum Secure Direct Communication with Four-Particle Genuine Entangled State and Dense Coding

A quantum secure direct communication scheme using dense coding is proposed. At first, the sender （Alice） prepares four-particle genuine entangled states and shares them with the receiver （Bob） by sending two particles in each entangled state to him. Secondly, Alice encodes secret information by performing the unitary transformations on her particles and transmits them to Bob. Finally, Bob performs the joint measurements on his particles to decode the secret information. The two-step security test guarantees the security of communication.     

Quantum Secure Communication by Using GHZ State in High-Dimensional Hilbert Space

We propose a quantum superdense coding secure communication scheme by using GHZ state. This scheme combines the ideas of quantum superdense coding and sequence transmission. Its distinct advantage is high source capacity. In addition, in checking eavesdropping, we need not to destroy quantum entanglement.     

Two Avowable Quantum Communication Schemes

Two avowable quantum communication schemes are proposed. One is an avowable teleportation protocol based on the quantum cryptography. In this protocol one teleports a set of one-particle states based on the availability of an honest arbitrator, the keys and the Einstein Podolsky-Rosen pairs shared by the communication parties and the arbitrator. The key point is that the fact of the teleportation can neither be disavowed by the sender nor be denied by the receiver. Another is an avowable quantum secure direct communication scheme. A one-way Hash function chosen by the communication parties helps the receiver to validate the truth of the information and to avoid disavowing for the sender.     

Efficient Quantum Secure Communication Protocol by Rearranging Particle Orders

We propose a quantum secure communication protocol by using three-particle GHZ states. In this protocol, we utilize the ideas of the rearranging orders and the sequence transmission. The sender of messages, Alice, first disturbs the particle orders in an initial sequence, and then sends the sequence of the disturbed orders to the receiver of messages, Bob. Under Alice＇s introduction, Bob rearranges the sequence back to the initial sequence. By making a GHZ state measurement on each of the three particles in turn, Bob can attain Alice＇s secret messages. In addition, we still calculate the efficiency of our three-particle GHZ protocol and generalize it to the case using multi-particle GHZ state.     

An Efficient Scheme for Multiparty Multi-particle State Sharing

We present an efficient scheme for sharing an arbitrary m-qubit state with n agents. In our scheme, the sender Alice first shares m Bell states with the agent Bob, who is designated to recover the original m-qubit state. Furthermore, Alice introduces n- 1 auxiliary particles in the initial state ｜0）, applies Hadamard （H） gate and Controlled-Not （CNOT） gate operations on the particles, which make them entangled with one of m particle pairs in Bell states, and then sends them to the controllers （i.e., other n - 1 agents）, where each controller only holds one particle in hand. After Alice performing m Bell-basis measurements and each controller a single-particle measurement, the recover Bob can obtain the original unknown quantum state by applying the corresponding local unitary operations on his particles. Its intrinsic efficiency for qubits approaches 100%, and the total efficiency really approaches the maximal value.     

Metric of States

Metric of quantum states plays an important role in quantum information theory. In this letter, we find the deep connection between quantum logic theory and quantum information theory. Using the method of quantum logic, we can get a famous inequality in quantum information theory, and we answer a question raised by S. Gudder.     

Promote entanglement trapping in photonic band gaps

We study the entanglement trapping of two entangled qubits, each of which is in its own photonic band gap, based on the weak measurement and quantum measurement reversal. An almost maximal entanglement of the two-qubit system can be trapped by using a certain weak measurement strength. Furthermore, we find that the optimal entanglement enhancing is not only dependent on the weak measurement strength but also on the different initial states. The outcomes in our scheme are completely different from that without any measurement on the studied system.     

Enhancing the precision of phase estimation by weak measurement and quantum measurement reversal

The enhancement of the precision of phase estimation in quantum metrology is investigated by employing weak measurement （WM） and quantum measurement reversal （QMR）. We derive the exact expressions of the optimal quantum Fisher information （QFI） and success probability of phase estimation for an exactly solving model consisting of a qubit interacting with a structured reservoir. We show that the QFI can be obviously enhanced by means of the WM and QMR in different regimes. In addition, we also show that the magnitude of the decoherence involved in the WM and QMR can be a general complex number, which extends the applicable scope of the WM and QMR approach.     

Unknown State Transmission Using GHZ States via Collective Noise Channel

Two protocols for transmitting an unknown single-photon state and an unknown non-maximally entangled EPR state are presented by using the quantum channel of three-phonton GHZ （Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger） state, which can be realized with unitary success probability when collective noise is taken into account. The protocols can also be generalized to transmit multi-photon state or to realize quantum communication in collective noise channel.     

Towards quantum-enhanced precision measurements： Promise and challenges

Quantum metrology holds the promise of improving the measurement precision beyond the limit of classical approaches.To achieve such enhancement in performance requires the development of quantum estimation theories as well as novel experimental techniques.In this article,we provide a brief review of some recent results in the field of quantum metrology.We emphasize that the unambiguous demonstration of the quantum-enhanced precision needs a careful analysis of the resources involved.In particular,the implementation of quantum metrology in practice requires us to take into account the experimental imperfections included,for example,particle loss and dephasing noise.For a detailed introduction to the experimental demonstrations of quantum metrology,we refer the reader to another article’Quantum metrology’in the same issue.     

Controlled Teleportation of Multi-qutrit Quantum Information by Swapping Entanglement

We present a scheme for teleporting multi-qutrit quantum information from a sender to a receiver via the control of many agents in a network. Agents＇s control parameters are obtained via quantum entanglement swapping. In our scheme, Zhang and Man＇s QSS protocol [Phys. Rev. A 72 （2005） 022303] based on Bell-state entanglement swapping is generalized to a qutrit case. Our scheme owns the advantage of having higher code capacity and better security than the work [Commun. Theor. Phys. 44 （2005） 847] on controlled teleportation for multi-qubit.     

Tripartition of Arbitrary Single-Qubit Information via a Class of Asymmetric Four-Qubit W State

A four-party scheme is put forward for a sender to partition arbitrary single-qubit information among three receivers by utilizing a class of asymmetric four-qubit W state as quantum channels. In the scheme the sender＇s quantum information can be recovered by the three receivers if and only if they collaborate together. Specifically, they collaborate to perform first two different 2-qubit collective unitary operations and then a single-qubit unitary operation. The scheme is symmetric and （3, 3）-threshold with regard to the reconstruction, for any receiver can be assigned to conclusively recover the quantum information with the other two＇s assistances.