The question
How much secret material must be reserved for authentication, and when can key refresh improve security without exhausting the key pool?
Why it matters
QKD still needs authenticated classical messages. This project studies the protocol around the quantum link: where initial trust comes from, how keys are consumed, and how a system recovers when communication fails.
What you could investigate
- Specify a state machine with an initial trust anchor, message authentication codes, and quantum-generated key refresh.
- Define an adversary and simulate key consumption under representative message traffic.
- Study replay, delay, loss, and resynchronization; optionally examine post-quantum signatures for identity functions.
What you could create
- An explicit threat model and protocol state machine
- Key-consumption and recovery experiments
- A protocol analysis with clearly stated assumptions
This is a research protocol study; it does not make a production security claim.