High-capacity dual degrees of freedom quantum secret sharing protocol beyond the linear rate-distance bound

Abstract

Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is the multipartite cryptographic primitive. Most of existing QSS protocols are limited by the linear rate-distance bound, and cannot realize the long-distance and high-capacity multipartite key distribution. This paper proposes a polarization (Pol) and phase (Ph) dual degrees of freedom (dual-DOF) QSS protocol based on the weak coherent pulse (WCP) sources. Our protocol combines the single-photon interference, two-photon interference and non-interference principles, and can resist the internal attack from the dishonest player. We develop simulation method to estimate its performance under the beam splitting attack. The simulation results show that our protocol can surpass the linear bound. Comparing with the differential-phase-shift twin-field QSS and WCP-Ph-QSS protocols, our protocol has stronger resistance against the beam splitting attack, and thus has longer maximal communication distance and higher key rate. By using the WCPs with high average photon number ($μ$ = 1.5), our protocol achieves a key rate about 5.4 times of that in WCP-Ph-QSS protocol. Its maximal communication distance (441.7 km) is about 7.9% longer than that of the WCP-Ph-QSS. Our protocol is highly feasible with current experimental technology and offers a promising approach for long-distance and high-capacity quantum networks.