Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-laser-science-and-quantum-information-processing-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/4/e/i/solution

Alice verifies each submitted qubit in her recorded secret basis and checks its bit against the revealed number. For a forger who chooses X or Z at random and prepares the corresponding known-bit eigenstate, each bit passes with probability . With independent basis choices,
The detection probability depends on Daisy's preparation strategy. The question does not restrict her to legitimate X/Z eigenstates. Once the bit is known, for bit zero the averaged acceptance operator is
For bit one it is . Both have largest eigenvalue . Preparing the corresponding eigenstate, a Bloch-vector bisector of the two candidate encodings, achieves this value; for bit zero it is .
The acceptance operator for the whole known check number is , whose largest eigenvalue is , so entangled preparation cannot improve this no-original-note optimum. Therefore unrestricted preparation instead gives
The random-basis value is the elementary protocol calculation; the second value states the best forging strategy allowed by arbitrary state preparation and no access to the original quantum note.

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