20 February 2023

Title: Towards implementation security of QKD

Speaker: Margarida Pereira

Abstract of Talk: In theory, quantum key distribution (QKD) enables secure communications between two remote parties in the presence of an eavesdropper with unlimited computational power. In practice, however, this is not yet the case. The practical implementation of QKD relies on physical devices, whose behaviour must be well characterised in order to guarantee security. Nonetheless, typical security proofs make unrealistic assumptions and ignore many experimental device imperfections. This big discrepancy between the theory and the practice of QKD opens security loopholes which can be exploited by an attacker, thus hindering the security claims of QKD. Indeed, implementation security is one of the critical problems of QKD today, which prevents its widespread use to protect our communications. In this talk, I will give an overview on the latest developments in the field and discuss the main challenges ahead.

Profile: Margarida obtained an integrated master’s degree in Theoretical Physics in 2017 from the University of Glasgow (Scotland) with a first-class honours. Then, she joined the group of Prof. Marcos Curty at the University of Vigo (Spain) to pursue a PhD in Physics, where she was funded by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie European Training Network “Quantum Communications for ALL” (QCALL). She graduated in 2021 with a distinction “cum laude” with International Mention, and received the PhD extraordinary award by the University of Vigo. After that, she started working as a post-doctoral fellow in the same university. Since 2022, she holds a JSPS-funded post-doctoral position at the University of Toyama, in the group of Prof. Kiyoshi Tamaki. Her main research interest is the implementation security of quantum key distribution.