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Paper 1

An Efficient Error Estimation Method in Quantum Key Distribution

Yingjian Wang, Yilun Hai, Buniechukwu Njoku, Koteswararao Kondepu, Riccardo Bassoli, Frank H. P. Fitzek

Year
2024
Journal
arXiv preprint
DOI
arXiv:2411.07160
arXiv
2411.07160

Error estimation is an important step for error correction in quantum key distribution. Traditional error estimation methods require sacrificing a part of the sifted key, forcing a trade-off between the accuracy of error estimation and the size of the partial sifted key to be used and discarded. In this paper, we propose a hybrid approach that aims to preserve the entire sifted key after error estimation while preventing Eve from gaining any advantage. The entire sifted key, modified and extended by our proposed method, is sent for error estimation in a public channel. Although accessible to an eavesdropper, the modified and extended sifted key ensures that the number of attempts to crack it remains the same as when no information is leaked. The entire sifted key is preserved for subsequent procedures, indicating the efficient utilization of quantum resources.

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Paper 2

ADaPT: Adaptive-window Decoding for Practical fault-Tolerance

Tina Oberoi, Joshua Viszlai, Frederic T. Chong

Year
2026
Journal
arXiv preprint
DOI
arXiv:2605.01149
arXiv
2605.01149

Window decoding, first proposed to reduce decoding complexity for real-time decoding, is an essential component to realize scalable, universal-fault tolerant computation. Prior work has focused on improving throughput through parallelization and reducing reaction time via speculation on window boundaries. However, these methods use a fixed window size d, paying a fixed decoding time overhead for each window. In practice, we find this overhead of a fixed window size unnecessary in many cases due to the sparsity of average-case errors in QEC. Leveraging this insight, in this paper we propose an adaptive window decoding technique based on decoder confidence. This technique reduces the overhead in decoding time thus reducing reaction time without compromising on logical error rates. We benchmark adaptive window decoding across different codes and hardware inspired noise models. Our results show that this adaptive technique reaches the target error rate while maintaining a low decoding time overhead across different codes, and under different noise models.

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