Search

An experimental cryptographic proof of quantumness will be a vital milestone in the progress of quantum information science. Error tolerance is a persistent challenge for implementing such tests: we need a test that not only can be passed by an efficient quantum prover, but one that can be passed by a prover that exhibits a certain amount of computational error. (Brakerski et al. 2018) introduced an innovative two-round proof of quantumness based on the Learning With Errors (LWE) assumption. However, one of the steps in their protocol (the pre-image test) has low tolerance for error. In this work we present a proof of quantumness which maintains the same circuit structure as (Brakerski et al. 2018) while improving the robustness for noise. Our protocol is based on cryptographically hiding an extended Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state within a sequence of classical bits. Asymptotically, our protocol allows the total probability of error within the circuit to be as high as $1 - O ( \lambda^{-C} )$, where $\lambda$ is the security parameter and $C$ is a constant that can be made arbitrarily large. As part of the proof of this result, we also prove an uncertainty principle over finite abelian groups which may be of independent interest., Comment: 37 pages

In quantum position verification, a prover certifies her location by performing a quantum computation and returning the results (at the speed of light) to a set of trusted verifiers. One of the very first protocols for quantum position verification was proposed in (Kent, Munro, Spiller 2011): the prover receives a qubit $Q$ from one direction, receives an orthogonal basis $\{ v, v^\perp \}$ from the opposite direction, then measures $Q$ in $\{ v, v^\perp \}$ and broadcasts the result. A number of variants of this protocol have been proposed and analyzed, but the question of whether the original protocol itself is secure has never been fully resolved. In this work we show that there is no perfect finite-dimensional cheating strategy for the original KMS measurement protocol. Our approach makes use of tools from real algebraic geometry., Comment: 5 pages

In the wake of recent progress on quantum computing hardware, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is standardizing cryptographic protocols that are resistant to attacks by quantum adversaries. The primary digital signature scheme that NIST has chosen is CRYSTALS-Dilithium. The hardness of this scheme is based on the hardness of three computational problems: Module Learning with Errors (MLWE), Module Short Integer Solution (MSIS), and SelfTargetMSIS. MLWE and MSIS have been well-studied and are widely believed to be secure. However, SelfTargetMSIS is novel and, though classically as hard as MSIS, its quantum hardness is unclear. In this paper, we provide the first proof of the hardness of SelfTargetMSIS via a reduction from MLWE in the Quantum Random Oracle Model (QROM). Our proof uses recently developed techniques in quantum reprogramming and rewinding. A central part of our approach is a proof that a certain hash function, derived from the MSIS problem, is collapsing. From this approach, we deduce a new security proof for Dilithium under appropriate parameter settings. Compared to the previous work by Kiltz, Lyubashevsky, and Schaffner (EUROCRYPT 2018) that gave the only other rigorous security proof for a variant of Dilithium, our proof has the advantage of being applicable under the condition q = 1 mod 2n, where q denotes the modulus and n the dimension of the underlying algebraic ring. This condition is part of the original Dilithium proposal and is crucial for the efficient implementation of the scheme. We provide new secure parameter sets for Dilithium under the condition q = 1 mod 2n, finding that our public key size and signature size are about 2.9 times and 1.3 times larger, respectively, than those proposed by Kiltz et al. at the same security level., Comment: 23 pages; v2: added description of CRYSTALS-Dilithium, improved analysis of concrete parameters

Trapdoor claw-free functions (TCFs) are immensely valuable in cryptographic interactions between a classical client and a quantum server. Typically, a protocol has the quantum server prepare a superposition of two-bit strings of a claw and then measure it using Pauli-$X$ or $Z$ measurements. In this paper, we demonstrate a new technique that uses the entire range of qubit measurements from the $XY$-plane. We show the advantage of this approach in two applications. First, building on (Brakerski et al. 2018, Kalai et al. 2022), we show an optimized two-round proof of quantumness whose security can be expressed directly in terms of the hardness of the LWE (learning with errors) problem. Second, we construct a one-round protocol for blind remote preparation of an arbitrary state on the $XY$-plane up to a Pauli-$Z$ correction., Comment: 36 pages. v2: added a future directions section and changed the formatting of the paper. v3: Quantum journal version

When two spatially separated parties make measurements on an unknown entangled quantum state, what correlations can they achieve? How difficult is it to determine whether a given correlation is a quantum correlation? These questions are central to problems in quantum communication and computation. Previous work has shown that the general membership problem for quantum correlations is computationally undecidable. In the current work we show something stronger: there is a family of constant-sized correlations -- that is, correlations for which the number of measurements and number of measurement outcomes are fixed -- such that solving the quantum membership problem for this family is computationally impossible. Thus, the undecidability that arises in understanding Bell experiments is not dependent on varying the number of measurements in the experiment. This places strong constraints on the types of descriptions that can be given for quantum correlation sets. Our proof is based on a combination of techniques from quantum self-testing and from undecidability results of the third author for linear system nonlocal games., Comment: v3: more polishes. v2: 55 pages, simplified main proof and minor fixes. v1: 68 pages and 1 figure. All comments are welcome

How can two parties with competing interests carry out a fair coin flip, using only a noiseless quantum channel? This problem (quantum weak coin-flipping) was formalized more than 15 years ago, and, despite some phenomenal theoretical progress, practical quantum coin-flipping protocols with vanishing bias have proved hard to find. In the current work we show that there is a reason that practical weak quantum coin-flipping is difficult: any quantum weak coin-flipping protocol with bias $\epsilon$ must use at least $\exp ( \Omega (1/\sqrt{\epsilon} ))$ rounds of communication. This is a large improvement over the previous best known lower bound of $\Omega ( \log \log (1/\epsilon ))$ due to Ambainis from 2004. Our proof is based on a theoretical construction (the two-variable profile function) which may find further applications., Comment: Added a diagram (Figure 5) and some explanatory text to the paper. Minor corrections and clarifications. 24 pages

Applications of randomness such as private key generation and public randomness beacons require small blocks of certified random bits on demand. Device-independent quantum random number generators can produce such random bits, but existing quantum-proof protocols and loophole-free implementations suffer from high latency, requiring many hours to produce any random bits. We demonstrate device-independent quantum randomness generation from a loophole-free Bell test with a more efficient quantum-proof protocol, obtaining multiple blocks of $512$ bits with an average experiment time of less than $5$ min per block and with a certified error bounded by $2^{-64}\approx 5.42\times 10^{-20}$., Comment: 4.5 pages (main text) + 8.5 pages (supplemental material), the version accepted to PRL

Quantum self-testing addresses the following question: is it possible to verify the existence of a multipartite state even when one's measurement devices are completely untrusted? This problem has seen abundant activity in the last few years, particularly with the advent of parallel self-testing (i.e., testing several copies of a state at once), which has applications not only to quantum cryptography but also quantum computing. In this work we give the first error-tolerant parallel self-test in a three-party (rather than two-party) scenario, by showing that an arbitrary number of copies of the GHZ state can be self-tested. In order to handle the additional complexity of a three-party setting, we use a diagrammatic proof based on categorical quantum mechanics, rather than a typical symbolic proof. The diagrammatic approach allows for manipulations of the complicated tensor networks that arise in the proof, and gives a demonstration of the importance of picture-languages in quantum information., Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2018, arXiv:1901.09476

When two players achieve a superclassical score at a nonlocal game, their outputs must contain intrinsic randomness. This fact has many useful implications for quantum cryptography. Recently it has been observed (C. Miller, Y. Shi, Quant. Inf. & Comp. 17, pp. 0595-0610, 2017) that such scores also imply the existence of local randomness -- that is, randomness known to one player but not to the other. This has potential implications for cryptographic tasks between two cooperating but mistrustful players. In the current paper we bring this notion toward practical realization, by offering a near-optimal bound on local randomness for the CHSH game, and also proving the security of a cryptographic application of local randomness (single-bit certified deletion)., Comment: v3: Minor revisions for journal publication, new plot of the CHSH game and improved accuracy of the Magic Square game result. 13 pages

The field of device-independent quantum cryptography has seen enormous success in the past several years, including security proofs for key distribution and random number generation that account for arbitrary imperfections in the devices used. Full security proofs in the field so far are long and technically deep. In this paper we show that the concept of the mirror adversary can be used to simplify device-independent proofs. We give a short proof that any bipartite Bell violation can be used to generate private random numbers. The proof is based on elementary techniques and is self-contained., Comment: v2: Minor corrections and revisions. 6 pages

If a measurement is made on one half of a bipartite system, then, conditioned on the outcome, the other half has a new reduced state. If these reduced states defy classical explanation -- that is, if shared randomness cannot produce these reduced states for all possible measurements -- the bipartite state is said to be steerable. Determining which states are steerable is a challenging problem even for low dimensions. In the case of two-qubit systems a criterion is known for T-states (that is, those with maximally mixed marginals) under projective measurements. In the current work we introduce the concept of keyring models -- a special class of local hidden state models. When the measurements made correspond to real projectors, these allow us to study steerability beyond T-states. Using keyring models, we completely solve the steering problem for real projective measurements when the state arises from mixing a pure two-qubit state with uniform noise. We also give a partial solution in the case when the uniform noise is replaced by independent depolarizing channels., Comment: 15(+4) pages, 5 figures. v2: references added, v3: minor changes

If two quantum players at a nonlocal game G achieve a superclassical score, then their measurement outcomes must be at least partially random from the perspective of any third player. This is the basis for device-independent quantum cryptography. In this paper we address a related question: does a superclassical score at G guarantee that one player has created randomness from the perspective of the other player? We show that for complete-support games, the answer is yes: even if the second player is given the first player's input at the conclusion of the game, he cannot perfectly recover her output. Thus some amount of local randomness (i.e., randomness possessed by only one player) is always obtained when randomness is certified from nonlocal games with quantum strategies. This is in contrast to non-signaling game strategies, which may produce global randomness without any local randomness. We discuss potential implications for cryptographic protocols between mistrustful parties., Comment: This paper is a merge of arXiv:1610.05140 and arXiv:1608.01011. 9 pages

We introduce a framework for graphical security proofs in device-independent quantum cryptography using the methods of categorical quantum mechanics. We are optimistic that this approach will make some of the highly complex proofs in quantum cryptography more accessible, facilitate the discovery of new proofs, and enable automated proof verification. As an example of our framework, we reprove a previous result from device-independent quantum cryptography: any linear randomness expansion protocol can be converted into an unbounded randomness expansion protocol. We give a graphical proof of this result, and implement part of it in the Globular proof assistant., Comment: Publishable version. Diagrams have been polished, minor revisions to the text, and an appendix added with supplementary proofs

A game is rigid if a near-optimal score guarantees, under the sole assumption of the validity of quantum mechanics, that the players are using an approximately unique quantum strategy. Rigidity has a vital role in quantum cryptography as it permits a strictly classical user to trust behavior in the quantum realm. This property can be traced back as far as 1998 (Mayers and Yao) and has been proved for multiple classes of games. In this paper we prove ridigity for the magic pentagram game, a simple binary constraint satisfaction game involving two players, five clauses and ten variables. We show that all near-optimal strategies for the pentagram game are approximately equivalent to a unique strategy involving real Pauli measurements on three maximally-entangled qubit pairs., Comment: v1: 7 pages, 2 figures; v2: closer to published version

A prominent application of quantum cryptography is the distribution of cryptographic keys that are provably secure. Recently, such security proofs were extended by Vazirani and Vidick (Physical Review Letters, 113, 140501, 2014) to the device-independent (DI) scenario, where the users do not need to trust the integrity of the underlying quantum devices. The protocols analyzed by them and by subsequent authors all require a sequential execution of N multiplayer games, where N is the security parameter. In this work, we prove unconditional security of a protocol where all games are executed in parallel. Besides decreasing the number of time-steps necessary for key generation, this result reduces the security requirements for DI-QKD by allowing arbitrary information leakage of each user's inputs within his or her lab. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first parallel security proof for a fully device-independent QKD protocol. Our protocol tolerates a constant level of device imprecision and achieves a linear key rate., Comment: v2: Proofs have been streamlined and reorganized, with minor corrections and numerical adjustments. 33 pages

It is known that if two players achieve a superclassical score at a nonlocal game $G$, then their outputs are certifiably random - that is, regardless of the strategy used by the players, a third party will not be able to perfectly predict their outputs (even if he were given their inputs). We prove that for any complete-support game $G$, there is an explicit nonzero function $F_G$ such that if Alice and Bob achieve a superclassical score of $s$ at $G$, then Bob has a probability of at most $1 - F_G ( s )$ of correctly guessing Alice's output after the game is played. Our result implies that certifying global randomness through such games must necessarily introduce local randomness., Comment: 6 pages. Comments welcome

Quantum nonlocality is an inherently non-classical feature of quantum mechanics and manifests itself through violation of Bell inequalities for nonlocal games. We show that in a fairly general setting, a simple extension of a nonlocal game can certify instead the absence of quantum nonlocality. Through contraposition, our result implies that a super-classical performance for such a game ensures that a player's output is unpredictable to the other player. Previously such output unpredictability was known with respect to a third party., Comment: 5 pages

Colbeck (Thesis, 2006) proposed using Bell inequality violations to generate certified random numbers. While full quantum-security proofs have been given, it remains a major open problem to identify the broadest class of Bell inequalities and lowest performance requirements to achieve such security. In this paper, working within the broad class of spot-checking protocols, we prove exactly which Bell inequality violations can be used to achieve full security. Our result greatly improves the known noise tolerance for secure randomness expansion: for the commonly used CHSH game, full security was only known with a noise tolerance of 1.5%, and we improve this to 10.3%. We also generalize our results beyond Bell inequalities and give the first security proof for randomness expansion based on Kochen-Specker inequalities. The central technical contribution of the paper is a new uncertainty principle for the Schatten norm, which is based on the uniform convexity inequality of Ball, Carlen, and Lieb (Inventiones mathematicae, 115:463-482, 1994)., Comment: v3: The main result has been strengthened and the proofs rewritten. The paper now includes a self-contained proof of security under Renyi entropies (simplifying arXiv:1402.0489). 27 pages

Randomness is a vital resource for modern day information processing, especially for cryptography. A wide range of applications critically rely on abundant, high quality random numbers generated securely. Here we show how to expand a random seed at an exponential rate without trusting the underlying quantum devices. Our approach is secure against the most general adversaries, and has the following new features: cryptographic level of security, tolerating a constant level of imprecision in the devices, requiring only a unit size quantum memory per device component for the honest implementation, and allowing a large natural class of constructions for the protocol. In conjunct with a recent work by Chung, Shi and Wu, it also leads to robust unbounded expansion using just 2 multi-part devices. When adapted for distributing cryptographic keys, our method achieves, for the first time, exponential expansion combined with cryptographic security and noise tolerance. The proof proceeds by showing that the Renyi divergence of the outputs of the protocol (for a specific bounding operator) decreases linearly as the protocol iterates. At the heart of the proof are a new uncertainty principle on quantum measurements, and a method for simulating trusted measurements with untrusted devices., Comment: v4: Revised for publication. QKD section substantially revised with corrected and complete proofs. Some reorganization, with appendices added. Minor corrections & changes. 70 pages

Many graph properties (e.g., connectedness, containing a complete subgraph) are known to be difficult to check. In a decision-tree model, the cost of an algorithm is measured by the number of edges in the graph that it queries. R. Karp conjectured in the early 1970s that all monotone graph properties are evasive -- that is, any algorithm which computes a monotone graph property must check all edges in the worst case. This conjecture is unproven, but a lot of progress has been made. Starting with the work of Kahn, Saks, and Sturtevant in 1984, topological methods have been applied to prove partial results on the Karp conjecture. This text is a tutorial on these topological methods. I give a fully self-contained account of the central proofs from the paper of Kahn, Saks, and Sturtevant, with no prior knowledge of topology assumed. I also briefly survey some of the more recent results on evasiveness., Comment: Book version, 92 pages

Self-testing a quantum device means verifying the existence of a certain quantum state as well as the effect of the associated measurements based only on the statistics of the measurement outcomes. Robust, i.e., error-tolerant, self-testing quantum devices are critical building blocks for quantum cryptographic protocols that rely on imperfect or untrusted quantum devices. We give a criterion which determines whether a given binary XOR game is robust self-testing with the asymptotically optimal error parameter. As an application, we prove that the celebrated CHSH game is an optimally robust self-test. We also prove the same for a family of tests recently proposed by Acin et al. (PRL 108:100402, 2012) for random number generation, thus extending the benefit of the latter tests to allow imperfect or untrusted quantum devices., Comment: 5 pages, plus 29 pages of supporting material. v4: fixed typo in abstract

The one-shot success probability of a noisy classical channel for transmitting one classical bit is the optimal probability with which the bit can be sent via a single use of the channel. Prevedel et al. (PRL 106, 110505 (2011)) recently showed that for a specific channel, this quantity can be increased if the parties using the channel share an entangled quantum state. We completely characterize the optimal entanglement-assisted protocols in terms of the radius of a set of operators associated with the channel. This characterization can be used to construct optimal entanglement-assisted protocols from the given classical channel and to prove the limit of such protocols. As an example, we show that the Prevedel et al. protocol is optimal for two-qubit entanglement. We also prove some simple upper bounds on the improvement that can be obtained from quantum and no-signaling correlations., Comment: 5 pages, plus 7 pages of supplementary material. v2 is significantly expanded and contains a new result (Theorem 2)

In this brief report, we consider the equivalence between two sets of $m+1$ bipartite quantum states under local unitary transformations. For pure states, this problem corresponds to the matrix algebra question of whether two degree $m$ matrix polynomials are unitarily equivalent; i.e. $UA_iV^\dagger=B_i$ for $0\leq i\leq m$ where $U$ and $V$ are unitary and $(A_i, B_i)$ are arbitrary pairs of rectangular matrices. We present a randomized polynomial-time algorithm that solves this problem with an arbitrarily high success probability and outputs transforming matrices $U$ and $V$.

In our earlier posting "Matrix Pencils and Entanglement Classification", arXiv:0911.1803, we gave a polynomial-time algorithm for deciding if two states in a space of dimension $2\otimes m\otimes n$ are SLOCC equivalent. In this note, we point out that a straightforward modification of the algorithm gives a simple enumeration of all SLOCC equivalence classes in the same space, with the class representatives expressed in the Kronecker canonical normal form of matrix pencils. Thus, two states are equivalent if and only if they have the same canonical form. As an example, we present representatives in canonical form for each of the 26 equivalence classes in $2\otimes 3\otimes n$ systems.

In this paper, we study pure state entanglement in systems of dimension $2\otimes m\otimes n$. Two states are considered equivalent if they can be reversibly converted from one to the other with a nonzero probability using only local quantum resources and classical communication (SLOCC). We introduce a connection between entanglement manipulations in these systems and the well-studied theory of matrix pencils. All previous attempts to study general SLOCC equivalence in such systems have relied on somewhat contrived techniques which fail to reveal the elegant structure of the problem that can be seen from the matrix pencil approach. Based on this method, we report the first polynomial-time algorithm for deciding when two $2\otimes m\otimes n$ states are SLOCC equivalent. Besides recovering the previously known 26 distinct SLOCC equivalence classes in $2\otimes 3\otimes n$ systems, we also determine the hierarchy between these classes.

The Grothendieck-Ogg-Shafarevich formula expresses the Euler characteristic of an etale sheaf on a curve in terms of local data. The purpose of this paper is to prove a version of the G-O-S formula which applies to equicharacteristic sheaves (a bound, rather than an equality). This follows a proposal of R. Pink. The basis for the result is the characteristic-p "Riemann-Hilbert" correspondence, which relates equicharacteristic etale sheaves to O_{F, X}-modules. In the paper we prove a version of this correspondence for curves, considering both local and global settings. In the process we define an invariant, the "minimal root index," which measures the local complexity of an O_{F, X}-module. This invariant provides the local terms for the main result., Comment: 25 pages