  We revisit the notion of deniability in quantum key exchange (QKE), a topic
that remains largely unexplored. In the only work on this subject by Donald
Beaver, it is argued that QKE is not necessarily deniable due to an
eavesdropping attack that limits key equivocation. We provide more insight into
the nature of this attack and how it extends to other constructions such as QKE
obtained from uncloneable encryption. We then adopt the framework for quantum
authenticated key exchange, developed by Mosca et al., and extend it to
introduce the notion of coercer-deniable QKE, formalized in terms of the
indistinguishability of real and fake coercer views. Next, we apply results
from a recent work by Arrazola and Scarani on covert quantum communication to
establish a connection between covert QKE and deniability. We propose DC-QKE, a
simple deniable covert QKE protocol, and prove its deniability via a reduction
to the security of covert QKE. Finally, we consider how entanglement
distillation can be used to enable information-theoretically deniable protocols
for QKE and tasks beyond key exchange.
