Secret sharing is a procedure for splitting a message into several parts so that no subset of parts is sufficient to read the message, but the entire set is. We show how this procedure can be implemented using GHZ states. In the quantum case the presence of an eavesdropper will introduce errors so that his presence can be detected. We also show how GHZ states can be used to split quantum information into two parts so that both parts are necessary to reconstruct the original qubit.Comment: 6 pages, revtex, revised version, to appear in Phys. Rev.

No abstract

We analyze a possibility of copying (≡ cloning) of arbitrary states of quantum-mechanical spin-1/2 system. We show that there exists a "universal quantum-copying machine" (i.e. transformation) which approximately copies quantum-mechanical states such that the quality of its output does not depend on the input. We also examine a machine which combines a unitary transformation and a selective measurement to produce good copies of states in the neighborhood of a particular state. We discuss the problem of measurement of the output states. 03.65.Bz