This paper unifiedly addresses two kinds of key quantum secure tasks, i.e., quantum versions of secret sharing (SS) and symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) by using multi-target monotone span program (MMSP), which characterizes the classical linear protocols of SS and SPIR. SS has two quantum extensions; One is the classical-quantum (CQ) setting, in which the secret to be sent is classical information and the shares are quantum systems. The other is the quantum-quantum (QQ) setting, in which the secret to be sent is a quantum state and the shares are quantum systems. The relation between these quantum protocols and MMSP has not been studied sufficiently. We newly introduce the third setting, i.e., the entanglement-assisted (EA) setting, which is defined by modifying the CQ setting with allowing prior entanglement between the dealer and the end-user who recovers the secret by collecting the shares. Showing that the linear version of SS with the EA setting is directly linked to MMSP, we characterize linear quantum versions of SS with the CQ ad QQ settings via MMSP. Further, we introduce the EA setting of SPIR, which is shown to link to MMSP. In addition, we discuss the quantum version of maximum distance separable codes.

In quantum private information retrieval (QPIR), a user retrieves a classical file from multiple servers by downloading quantum systems without revealing the identity of the file. The QPIR capacity is the maximal achievable ratio of the retrieved file size to the total download size. In this paper, the capacity of QPIR from MDS-coded and colluding servers is studied for the first time. Two general classes of QPIR, called stabilizer QPIR and dimension-squared QPIR induced from classical strongly linear PIR are defined, and the related QPIR capacities are derived. For the non-colluding case, the general QPIR capacity is derived when the number of files goes to infinity. A general statement on the converse bound for QPIR with coded and colluding servers is derived showing that the capacities of stabilizer QPIR and dimension-squared QPIR induced from any class of PIR are upper bounded by twice the classical capacity of the respective PIR class. The proposed capacity-achieving scheme combines the star-product scheme by Freij-Hollantiet al.and the stabilizer QPIR scheme by Songet al.by employing (weakly) self-dual Reed–Solomon codes.

We study the equivalence between non-perfect secret sharing (NSS) and symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) with arbitrary response and collusion patterns. NSS and SPIR are defined with an access structure, which corresponds to the authorized/forbidden sets for NSS and the response/collusion patterns for SPIR. We prove the equivalence between NSS and SPIR in the following two senses. 1) Given any SPIR protocol with an access structure, an NSS protocol is constructed with the same access structure and the same rate. 2) Given any linear NSS protocol with an access structure, a linear SPIR protocol is constructed with the same access structure and the same rate. We prove the first relation even if the SPIR protocol has imperfect correctness and secrecy. From the first relation, we derive an upper bound of the SPIR capacity for arbitrary response and collusion patterns. For the special case of$\mathsf {n}$-server SPIR with$\mathsf {r}$responsive and$\mathsf {t}$colluding servers, this upper bound proves that the SPIR capacity is$(\mathsf {r}-\mathsf {t})/\mathsf {n}$. From the second relation, we prove that a SPIR protocol exists for any response and collusion patterns.

We study the equivalence between non-perfect secret sharing (NSS) and symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) with colluding and unresponsive servers. We prove the equivalence between NSS and SPIR in the following two senses. 1) Given any SPIR protocol, we can construct an NSS protocol. 2) Given any linear NSS protocol, we can construct a SPIR protocol. We prove the first relation even if the SPIR protocol has imperfect correctness and secrecy. From the first relation, we derive an upper bound of the SPIR capacity for general access structure. For the special case of n-server SPIR with r responsive and t colluding servers, this upper bound proves that the SPIR capacity is (r-t)/n. From the second relation, we prove that a SPIR protocol exists for any access structure.

Quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) for quantum messages is the protocol in which a user retrieves one of the multiple quantum states from one or multiple servers without revealing which state is retrieved. We consider QPIR in two different settings: the blind setting, in which the servers contain one copy of the message states, and the visible setting, in which the servers contain the description of the message states. One trivial solution in both settings is downloading all states from the servers and the main goal of this paper is to find more efficient QPIR protocols. First, we prove that the trivial solution is optimal for one-server QPIR in the blind setting. In one-round protocols, the same optimality holds even in the visible setting. On the other hand, when the user and the server share entanglement, we prove that there exists an efficient one-server QPIR protocol in the blind setting. Furthermore, in the visible setting, we prove that it is possible to construct symmetric QPIR protocols in which the user obtains no information of the non-targeted messages. We construct two-server symmetric QPIR protocols for pure states. Note that symmetric classical PIR is impossible without shared randomness unknown to the user.

We study the capacity of quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) with multiple servers. In the QPIR problem with multiple servers, a user retrieves a classical file by downloading quantum systems from multiple servers each of which contains the copy of a classical file set while the identity of the downloaded file is not leaked to each server. The QPIR capacity is defined as the maximum rate of the file size over the whole dimension of the downloaded quantum systems. When the servers are assumed to share prior entanglement, we prove that the QPIR capacity with multiple servers is 1 regardless of the number of servers and files. We construct a rate-one protocol only with two servers. This capacity-achieving protocol outperforms its classical counterpart in the sense of the capacity, server secrecy, and upload cost. The strong converse bound is derived concisely without using any secrecy condition. We also prove that the capacity of multi-round QPIR is 1.

Quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) is a protocol in which a user retrieves one of multiple files from n non-communicating servers by downloading quantum systems without revealing which file is retrieved. As variants of QPIR with stronger security requirements, symmetric QPIR is a protocol in which no other files than the target file are leaked to the user, and t-private QPIR is a protocol in which the identity of the target file is kept secret even if at most t servers may collude to reveal the identity. The QPIR capacity is the maximum ratio of the file size to the size of downloaded quantum systems, and we prove that the symmetric t-private QPIR capacity is min{1,2( n- t)/ n} for any 1 ≤ t <; n. We construct a capacity-achieving QPIR protocol by the stabilizer formalism and prove the optimality of our protocol. The proposed capacity is greater than the classical counterpart.

Quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) is a protocol that a user retrieves one of f files from non-communicating n servers by downloading quantum systems without revealing the identity of the target file. As variants of the QPIR with stronger security requirements, the symmetric QPIR is that the files except for the target file are not leaked to the user, and the t-private QPIR is that the identity of the target file is kept secret even if at most t servers may collude to reveal the identity. The QPIR capacity is the maximum ratio of the one file size to the size of downloaded quantum systems, and we prove that the symmetric t-private QPIR capacity is min {1, 2(n - t)/n} for any 1 ≤ t <; n. We construct a capacity-achieving QPIR protocol by the stabilizer formalism and prove the optimality of our protocol. The proposed capacity is greater than the classical counterpart.

We consider the secure quantum communication over a network with the presence of a malicious adversary who can eavesdrop and contaminate the states. The network consists of noiseless quantum channels with the unit capacity and the nodes which applies noiseless quantum operations. As the main result, when the maximum number m1of the attacked channels over the entire network uses is less than a half of the network transmission rate m0(i.e., m10/2), our code implements secret and correctable quantum communication of the rate m0- 2m1by using the network asymptotic number of times. Our code is universal in the sense that the code is constructed without the knowledge of the specific node operations and the network topology, but instead, every node operation is constrained to the application of an invertible matrix to the basis states. Moreover, our code requires no classical communication. Our code can be thought of as a generalization of the quantum secret sharing.

We study the capacity of quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) with multiple servers. In the QPIR problem with multiple servers, a user retrieves a classical file by downloading quantum systems from multiple servers each of which containing the whole classical file set, without revealing the identity of the retrieved file to any individual server. The QPIR capacity is defined as the maximum rate of the file size over the whole dimension of the downloaded quantum systems. Assuming the preexisting entanglement among servers, we prove that the QPIR capacity with multiple servers is 1 regardless of the number of servers and files. We propose a rate-one protocol which can be implemented by using only two servers. This capacity-achieving protocol outperforms its classical counterpart in the sense of the capacity, server secrecy, and upload cost. The strong converse bound is derived concisely without using the secrecy conditions.

Quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) is the problem to retrieve one of f classical files by downloading quantum systems from non-communicating n servers each of which contains the copy of f files, while the identity of the retrieved file is unknown to each server. As an extension, we consider the (n-1)-private QPIR that the identity of the retrieved file is secret even if any n-1 servers collude, and derive the QPIR capacity for this problem which is defined as the maximum rate of the retrieved file size over the download size. For an even number n of servers, we show that the capacity of the (n-1)-private QPIR is 2/n, when we assume that there are preexisting entanglements among the servers and require that no information of the nonretrieved files is downloaded. We construct an (n - 1)-private QPIR protocol of rate Γn/21-1and prove that the capacity is upper bounded by 2/n. The (n - 1)-private QPIR capacity is strictly greater than the classical counterpart. The full version of this paper is accessible at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.12556.

We consider the secure quantum communication over a network with the presence of the malicious adversary who can eavesdrop and contaminate the states. The network consists of the noiseless quantum channels with unit capacity and the nodes which applies noiseless quantum operations. As the main result, when the maximum number m1of the attacked channels over the entire network uses is less than a half of network transmission rate m0(i.e., m10/2), our protocol implements secret and correctable quantum communication of rate m0- 2m1by using the network asymptotic number of times. Our protocol requires no classical communication and no knowledge of network structure, but instead, a node operation is limited to the application of an invertible matrix to the basis states. Our protocol can be thought of as a generalization of honest-dealer verifiable quantum secret sharing. A full version of this paper is accessible at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.03306.pdf.