Semi-quantum identification

To ensure communication security, it is necessary to verify the identities of the communicators. Two semi-quantum identification protocols with single photons involving two parties, i.e., quantum Alice and classical Bob, are presented. In the first semi-quantum identification protocol, classical Bob can authenticate quantum Alice's identity without the help of an authenticated classical channel. As for the second one, quantum Alice can verify the identity of classical Bob without the classical measurement ability. Semi-quantum identification is significant to ensure the security of semi-quantum key distribution, semi-quantum secret sharing and so on. The proposed two identification protocols against common attacks can be employed in several existing semi-quantum key distribution protocols based on single photons to resist the man-in-the-middle attack.