Round-robin differential quadrature phase-shift quantum key distribution

Recently, a round-robin differential phase-shift (RRDPS) protocol was proposed Nature 509, 475 (2014)], in which the amount of leakage is bounded without monitoring the signal disturbance. Introducing states of the phase-encoded Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol (PE-BB84) to the RRDPS, this paper presents another quantum key distribution protocol called round-robin differential quadrature phase-shift (RRDQPS) quantum key distribution. Regarding a train of many pulses as a single packet, the sender modulates the phase of each pulse by one of 0,π/2,π,3π/2, then the receiver measures each packet with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer having a phase basis of 0 or π/2. The RRDQPS protocol can be implemented with essential similar hardware to the PE-BB84, so it has great compatibility with the current quantum system. Here we analyze the security of the RRDQPS protocol against the intercept-resend attack and the beam-splitting attack. Results show that the proposed protocol inherits the advantages arising from the simplicity of the RRDPS protocol and is more robust against these attacks than the original protocol.