No-go theorem for heralded exact one-way key distillation
Abstract
The heralded exact one-way distillable secret key is equal to the largest expected rate at which perfect secret key bits can be probabilistically distilled from a bipartite state by means of local operations and one-way classical communication. Here we define the set of super two-extendible states and prove that an arbitrary state in this set cannot be used for heralded exact one-way secret-key distillation. This broad class of states includes both erased states and all full-rank states. Comparing the heralded exact one-way distillable secret key with the more commonly studied approximate one-way distillable secret key, our results demonstrate an extreme gap between them for many states of interest, with the approximate one-way distillable secret key being much larger. Our findings naturally extend to heralded exact one-way entanglement distillation, with similar conclusions.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Quantum
- Publisher
- Verein zur Forderung des Open Access Publizierens in den Quantenwissenschaften
- Volume
- 10
- Pages
- 2020–2020
- Publication date
- 10 March 2026
- Language
- EN