Controlled quantum secure direct communication with authentication protocol based on five-particle cluster state and classical XOR operation

A controlled quantum secure direct communication with authentication protocol based on the five-particle cluster state and the classical XOR operation is proposed in this paper. To begin with, three participants of the communication protocol generated a corresponding identity ID through quantum key distribution and kept it secret. The five-particle cluster state had two particles for the information frame, two for the identity and security check frame, and one for the control frame. According to a certain rule, the identity and security check was completed by using the z-base or x-base single-particle measurement. The sender Alice encoded the information by performing a unitary operation on the information particle sequence. With the controller’s help (Cindy), Bob decoded the information that Alice had sent by measuring the particle sequence and using the classical XOR operation according to certain rules. An analysis of the security of this protocol revealed that this protocol could effectively prevent eavesdroppers from acquiring useful information and was able to detect the eavesdropping behavior.