Entanglement and Quantum Cryptography

Quantum cryptography is one of the most important quantum information applications. The present thesis covers several topics on quantum cryptography, such as the security analysis of quantum channels for key distribution protocols and the study of quantum cloning. First, we introduce a general formalism to characterize the cryptographic properties of quantum channels in the realistic scenario where the two honest parties employ prepare and measure protocols and the known two-way communication reconciliation techniques. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition to distill a secret key using this type of schemes for arbitrary bipartite quantum systems of finite dimension. The obtained results suggest that there may exist weakly entangling channels useless for key distribution using prepare and measure schemes. Next, we consider Gaussian states and Gaussian operations for cryptographic tasks and derive a new security condition. As it happens for quantum systems of finite dimension, our results suggest that there may also exist weakly entangled Gaussian states useless for key distribution, using Gaussian operations. Finally, we study the connection between cloning and state estimation. It was a long-standing problem to show whether state estimation becomes equivalent to quantum cloning in the asymptotic limit of an infinite number of clones. The equivalence is proven here using two known results in quantum information theory, the monogamy of quantum states and the properties of entanglement-breaking channels.