title: Experimental loss-tolerant quantum coin flipping.
abstract: Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two distrustful parties wish to generate a random bit to choose between two alternatives. This task is impossible to realize when it relies solely on the asynchronous exchange of classical bits: one dishonest player has complete control over the final outcome. It is only when coin flipping is supplemented with quantum communication that this problem can be alleviated, although partial bias remains. Unfortunately, practical systems are subject to loss of quantum data, which allows a cheater to force a bias that is complete or arbitrarily close to complete in all previous protocols and implementations. Here we report on the first experimental demonstration of a quantum coin-flipping protocol for which loss cannot be exploited to cheat better. By eliminating the problem of loss, which is unavoidable in any realistic setting, quantum coin flipping takes a significant step towards real-world applications of quantum communication.
authors: Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal, CP 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3J7.
authors: Guido
authors: G
authors: Berlín
authors: Gilles
authors: G
authors: Brassard
authors: Félix
authors: F
authors: Bussières
authors: Nicolas
authors: N
authors: Godbout
authors: Joshua A
authors: JA
authors: Slater
authors: Wolfgang
authors: W
authors: Tittel