Practical intensity attack on continuous-variable quantum key distribution with a true local oscillator

In continuous-variable quantum key distribution system with a true local oscillator (LLO CV-QKD), part of the phase noise associated with the coherent detector and the phase-reference intensity can be considered as trusted because which can be locally calibrated at the receiver’s side. The trusted phase noise model can significantly improve the noise tolerance of the system since the phase noise is the major excess noise. However, the transmission of the phase-reference pulse through the insecure quantum channel in the LLO CV-QKD system may leave rooms for the eavesdropper to mount attacks. Here, we propose a practical and flexible phase-reference intensity attack scheme using a phaseinsensitive amplifier to amplify the intensity of the phase-reference pulse. In this case, the eavesdropper can compromise the security of the LLO CV-QKD system severely by lowering the trusted part of the phase noise to compensate her increased attack on the signal pulse while the total excess noise is unchanged. We simulate the secure key rate with respect to the transmission distance to show that precisely monitoring the instantaneous intensity of the phase-reference pulse in real time is of great importance to guarantee the security of the LLO CV-QKD system.