Authentication of Quantum Messages

Functionality

If a person sends some information over an insecure channel (a dishonest/malicious party has access to the channel), what is the guarantee that the receiver on the other end will receive the same information as sent and not something which is modified or replaced by the dishonest party? Authentication of quantum channels/quantum states/quantum messages provides this guarantee to the users of the channel. Note that, it is different from the functionality of digital signatures which comes with additional properties (non-repudiation, unforgeability and transferability). Also, authenticating quantum states is possible but signing quantum states is impossible, a result first stated in (1)

Further Information

1. Barnum et al (2002) First protocol on authentication of quantum messages. It is also used later for verification of quantum computation in Interactive Proofs for Quantum Computation. Protocol file for this article is given as the Polynomial code Based Quantum Authentication

contributed by Shraddha Singh