Complementarity Paradox Solved: Surprising Consequences

Afshar et al. claim that their experiment shows a violation of the complementarity inequality. In this work, we study their claim using a modified Mach-Zehnder setup that represents a simpler version of the Afshar experiment. We find that our results are consistent with Afshar et al. experimental findings. However, we show that within standard quantum mechanics the results of the Afshar experiment do not lead to a violation of the complementarity inequality. We show that their claim originates from a particular technique they use to analyze their results. In their analysis, they assume a classical concept, that particles have a definite trajectory before detection, thus, they obtain which-way information by particle detection plus path extrapolation by applying momentum conservation. This analysis technique is standard in experimental particle physics. Important discoveries such as the detection of vector bosons have been made through the application of this technique. We note that particle detection plus path extrapolation is a suitable technique within de Broglie-Bohm theory of quantum mechanics.     

Reexamining the Security of Controlled Quantum Secure Direct Communication by Using Four Particle Cluster States

A controlled quantum secure direct communication protocol (Zhang et al. in Int. J. Theor. Phys. 48:2971–2976, 2009) by using four particle cluster states was proposed recently. Yang et al. presented an attack with fake entangled particles (FEP attack) and gave an improvement (Yang et al. in Int. J. Theor. Phys. 50:395–400, 2010). In this paper, we reexamine the protocol’s security and discover that, Bob can also take a different attack, disentanglement attack, to obtain Alice’s secret message without controller’s permission. Moreover, our attack strategy also works for Yang’s improvement.     

Intercept-Resend-Measure Attack Towards Quantum Private Comparison Protocol Using Genuine Four-Particle Entangled States and its Improvement

Recently, Jia et al. proposed the quantum private comparison protocol with the genuine four-particle entangled states (Jia et al., Int. J. Theor. Phys. 51(4), 1187–1194 (2012)). Jia et al. claimed that in this protocol, TP cannot obtain Alice and Bob’s secrets and only knows their comparison result. However, in this paper, we demonstrate that if TP is a genuine semi-honest third party, he can totally obtain Alice and Bob’s secrets by launching a particular intercept-resend-measure attack. After suggesting the intercept-resend-measure attack strategy from TP first, we put forward one corresponding improvement to prevent this attack.     

Comment on the “Quantum Private Comparison Protocol Based on Bell Entangled States”

Recently, Liu et al. proposed a quantum private comparison (QPC) based on Bell entangled states (Liu et al. in Commun. Theor. Phys. 57(4): 583, 2012). This paper points out a security loophole in Liu et al.’s protocol, in which the third party can disclose the private information of both users. In addition, an improvement is proposed to avoid the loophole.     

Improving the Security of Controlled Quantum Secure Direct Communication by Using Four Particle Cluster States Against an Attack with Fake Entangled Particles

A controlled quantum secure direct communication protocol (Zhang et al. Int. J. Theor. Phys. 48:2971–2976, 2009) by using four particle cluster states was proposed recently. The aim of Zhang et al. was that the successful realization of communication between Alice and Bob needed the cooperation of a controller, Charlie. However, we show that the controller Charlie’s role could be excluded unknowingly. Using fake entangled particles and Bell measurement, the dishonest Bob who generates the initial signals can elicit Alice’s secret message without the permission of Charlie. A possible improvement of the protocol is proposed.     

Multi-Party Quantum Private Comparison Protocol Based on Entanglement Swapping of Bell Entangled States

Recently, Liu et al. proposed a two-party quantum private comparison (QPC) protocol using entanglement swapping of Bell entangled state (Commun. Theor. Phys. 57 (2012) 583). Subsequently, Liu et al. pointed out that in Liu et al.'s protocol, the TP can extract the two users' secret inputs without being detected by launching the Bell-basis measurement attack, and suggested the corresponding improvement to mend this loophole (Commun. Theor. Phys. 62 (2014) 210). In this paper, we first point out the information leakage problem toward TP existing in both of the above two protocols, and then suggest the corresponding improvement by using the one-way hash function to encrypt the two users' secret inputs. We further put forward the three-party QPC protocol also based on entanglement swapping of Bell entangled state, and then validate its output correctness and its security in detail. Finally, we generalize the three-party QPC protocol into the multi-party case, which can accomplish arbitrary pair's comparison of equality among K users within one execution.     

High degree of entanglement and nonlocality of a two-photon state generated at 532 nm

In the last years the attention of the scientific community on the generation of entangled states has constantly increased both for their importance in the foundation of quantum mechanics and for their application in the quantum computation and communication field. To these aims high quality of generated states is required. A standard procedure to produce entangled photons pairs is spontaneous down conversion process in nonlinear crystals. In this paper we report preparation of quantum entangled states using CW laser at 266 nm pumping the standard Kwiat’s source. We have been able to generate the full set of Bell’s states with very high purity, fidelity and Concurrence which have been estimated using standard tomography procedure. To proof the high degree of achieved entanglement, we performed a non-locality test obtaining a high violation of the CHSH inequality.     

On the coherence measurement of a narrow bandwidth dye laser

In this paper, we report a new technique for spatial and temporal coherence measurement of narrow bandwidth sources. In particular, coherence measurement of a narrow bandwidth dye laser using Young’s double slit method and the Fabry–Perot interferometer has been carried out. In the spatial coherence measurement, a central fringe visibility of 0.85 was observed, and from this measurement, the dye gain medium source size was estimated. The variation in the visibility with slit separation (0.1–3.0 mm) for different source sizes (0.1–0.2 mm) was also analyzed. The temporal coherence length of the tunable dye laser was measured to be 10 and 60 cm for multimode and single-mode operations, respectively. The technique, in general, can also be used for spatial and temporal measurement of broadband spectrum source.     

Measurement-device-independent quantum dialogue

Recently, measurement-device-independent quantum secure direct communication schemes were proposed by Niu et al. [Sci. Bull. 63 1345(2018)] and Zhou et al. [Sci. China-Phys. Mech. Astron. 63 230362(2020)]. Inspired by their ideas,in this paper, a measurement-device-independent quantum dialogue protocol based on entanglement is designed and proven to be secure. The advantage of this scheme is that it can not only allow two communicators to transmit secret messages between each other, making the application scenarios more extensive, but can also eliminate all the security loopholes related to the measurement device and information leakage. In terms of experimental implementation, the scheme mainly involves the preparation of entangled states, the preparation of single photons, quantum storage, Bell measurement and other technologies, all of which are mature at present, therefore, the scheme is feasible by using current technologies.     

Solution to Information Leakage in a Quantum Network System of QSS-QDC Using χ-Type Entangled States

Recently, Hong et al. (Chin. Phys. Lett. 29:050303, 2012) put forward two quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols of quantum direct communication (QDC) by using χ-type entangled states. Later, some studies (Gao et al. in Chin. Phys. Lett. 29:110305, 2012; Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:079904, 2013; Liu et al. in Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:039901, 2013; Hong and Yang in Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:069901, 2013; Liu and Chen in Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:079903, 2013) made up for the drawbacks of Hong et al.’s two protocols to some extent. However, the information leakage weakness is still not thoroughly solved. In this Letter, the author analyzes the inner reason of information leakage weakness in detail at first. And then he suggests an effective encoding rule to avoid this weakness.