Orthogonal-state-based measurement device independent quantum communication: a noise-resilient approach

Abstract

We attempt to propose the first orthogonal-state-based protocols of measurement-device-independent quantum secure direct communication and quantum dialogue employing single basis, i.e., Bell basis as decoy qubits for eavesdropping detection. Orthogonal-state-based protocols are inherently distinct from conventional conjugate-coding protocols, offering unconditional security derived from the duality and monogamy of entanglement. Noise imposes a major challenge to the efficient implementation of these measurement-device-independent based secure direct quantum communication protocols. Notably, these orthogonal-state-based protocols demonstrate improved performance over conjugate-coding-based protocols under certain noisy environments, highlighting the significance of selecting the best basis choice of decoy qubits for secure quantum communication under collective noise. Further, we rigorously analyze the security of the proposed protocols against various eavesdropping strategies, including intercept-and-resend attack, entangle-and-measure attack, information leakage attack, flip attack, and disturbance or modification attack. Our findings also show that, with appropriate modifications, the proposed orthogonal-state-based measurement-device-independent quantum secure direct communication protocol can be transformed into orthogonal-state-based measurement-device-independent versions of quantum key distribution and quantum key negotiation protocols, expanding their applicability. Our protocols leverage fundamentally distinct resources to close the security loopholes linked to measurement devices, while also effectively doubling the distance for secure direct message transmission compared to traditional quantum secure direct communication protocols. Additionally, we calculate the efficiency of our proposed protocols and compare them with standard versions of measurement-device-independent quantum secure direct communication protocols. Ultimately, we discuss system and operational complexity of our proposed protocols in light of experimental elements and the processes.