Continuous-variable measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution with photon subtraction

Abstract: It has been found that non-Gaussian operations can be applied to increase and distill entanglement between Gaussian entangled states. We show the successful use of the non-Gaussian operation, in particular, photon subtraction operation, on the continuous-variable measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (CV-MDI-QKD) protocol. The proposed method can be implemented based on existing technologies. Security analysis shows that the photon subtraction operation can remarkably increase the maximal transmission distance of the CV-MDI-QKD protocol, which precisely make up for the shortcoming of the original CV-MDI-QKD protocol, and 1-photon subtraction operation has the best performance. Moreover, the proposed protocol provides a feasible method for the experimental implementation of the CV-MDI-QKD protocol.