Overcoming unambiguous state discrimination attack with the help of Schrödinger Cat decoy states

Abstract

In this work we propose the technique for phase-coded weak coherent states protocols utilizing two signal states and one decoy state which is found as linear combination of signal states (Schrödinger Cat states); the latter allows to overcome the USD attack. For instance, Schrödinger Cat states can be considered as even coherent states. Moreover we consider decoy states implementation based on squeezed vacuum states which might not disables USD completely yet produces discrimination probabilities low enough to distribute keys in channel with particular losses. Thus we can detect Eve simply by monitoring the detection rate of decoy states. It should be noted that this approach can be scaled to more complex schemes.