The ability to synchronize remote clocks plays an increasingly important role in our infrastructure, from maintaining coherence in the electrical grid to allowing precise positioning and navigation for civilian and military applications. However, many of the techniques to establish and maintain this time synchronization have been shown to be susceptible to interference by malicious parties. Here we propose a protocol that builds on techniques from quantum communication to provide a verified and secure time synchronization protocol. In contrast with classical protocols aimed at increasing the security of time distribution, we need not make any assumptions about the distance or propagation times between the clocks. In order to compromise the security of the protocol, an adversary must be able to perform quantum non-demolition measurements of the presence of a singe photon with high probability. The requirement of such quantum measurements raises a serious technological barrier for any would-be adversary
We report on the implementation of a photon counting polarimeter based on a scheme known to be optimal for obtaining the polarization vector of ensembles of spin-1/2 quantum systems. We show how to use this polarimeter to estimate the complete polarization state for generic multi-photon states. State reconstruction using the polarimeter is illustrated by actual measurements on prepared ensembles of one- and two-photon systems. The rate at which the estimated polarization state converges to an asymptote state is also measured and presented.
Conference Committee Involvement (1)
Quantum Computing, Communication, and Simulation IV
27 January 2024 | San Francisco, California, United States
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