Papers for

quantum communication teams

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Variance of relative entropy measured across random quantum states

Variance of relative entropy over random states

Abstract: Average relative entropy over major generic random states is recently studied. In this work, the investigation is extended by deriving the variances of relative entropy over the Hilbert--Schmidt and Bures--Hall ensembles, which characterize its fluctuations around the average value. Exact results for the variances of relative entropy between independent states drawn from the same ensemble and from two different ensembles are obtained. These results further indicate that the average relative entropy is typical in the considered limiting regimes. In addition to the matrix-level calculations similar to the average relative entropy, eigenvalue correlation functions of the ensembles are involved in the variance computations through the use of zonal polynomials.

Fri 23 OctInformation Theory
The gist
Measuring how different two quantum states are is important in quantum computing and physics. The authors look beyond just the average difference to understand how much these differences can vary when picking random states. They calculate exact formulas for this variation in two common ways of generating random states. These results show that the average difference is usually a good representation because the fluctuations around it are small in the studied scenarios. Their work uses advanced math dealing with random matrices and eigenvalues.
Open → 2610.32899v1

Efficient algorithms find closest Gaussian states in bosonic systems

Finding Gaussian Structure in Bosonic States

Abstract: We study agnostic tomography of pure bosonic Gaussian states: given copies of an arbitrary $n$-mode bosonic state $ρ$, the goal is to output a pure Gaussian state whose infidelity with $ρ$ is at most $\mathrm{opt} + ε$, where $\mathrm{opt}$ is the minimum infidelity achievable by any pure Gaussian state. We give efficient protocols achieving this in both the high and low fidelity regimes. When $\mathrm{opt}$ is below some universal constant, our protocol has runtime and copy complexity which is strongly polynomial in $n, 1/ε$ and $\log \log E$, where $E$ is the energy of the closest pure Gaussian state. For arbitrary $\mathrm{opt}$, our protocol uses $(n+1)^{\mathrm{poly}(1/ε)} \mathrm{poly}\left(1+\log\log(E)\right)$ copies and runtime. As a corollary, we obtain the first truly tolerant Gaussianity testing protocol for distinguishing whether $\mathrm{opt} > c + ε$ or $\mathrm{opt} < c - ε$, for any threshold $c\in(0,1)$. We also prove $\mathrm{poly}(n,1/ε)$ runtime is impossible, unless $\mathrm{NP}\subseteq\mathrm{BQP}$. Our protocols follow a shared paradigm: first, we iteratively use general Gaussian measurements combined with techniques from classical robust statistics to obtain a good warm start estimate, then we leverage non-Gaussian measurements to refine this warm start using convex and non-convex optimization methods. Interestingly, we prove that non-Gaussian measurements are necessary to match the strong agnostic guarantees we obtain, and in fact these guarantees are provably superior to what is possible for robustly estimating classical Gaussians.

Mon 5 OctData Structures and AlgorithmsMachine Learning
The gist
Bosonic Gaussian states are important quantum states used in physics and quantum computing. The paper presents new methods to find the best pure Gaussian state approximation for any unknown bosonic state using a limited number of samples. The authors show efficient algorithms that work even when the unknown state is not close to any Gaussian state, and prove that some complex measurements are necessary for this accuracy. They also provide a way to test how Gaussian a state is with strong theoretical guarantees.
Open → 2610.06810v1

Quantum one-time memory possible with restricted classical queries

Beyond NISQ Assumptions: One-time Memory in the Classically Accessible Random-Oracle Model

Abstract: Quantum information enables many cryptographic primitives that are impossible in the classical world. A line of works has developed cryptographic protocol under the assumption that quantum adversaries are restricted to noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computing power, enabling strong one-time functionalities. But the advent of early fault-tolerant quantum computers eras will allow deeper logical quantum circuits, calling into questions the applicability of these NISQ-based assumptions. In this work, we adapt the classically accessible random oracle model (CAROM) as in [BDF+11] and [AK22], in which adversaries are only allowed to classically query the random oracle. The restriction is well motivated for NISQ quantum adversaries and may remain plausible in the presence of early fault-tolerant quantum computers. Then, we show that an efficient simulation-secure one-time memory (OTM) is possible under CAROM. Our protocol uses only BB84 states and has quadratic communication: for a $λ$-bit message and integer-valued parameters $n=n(λ)$ and $\ell=\ell(λ)$, the construction uses $n\ell$ qubits and $(n+2)λ$ classical bits, and for any quantum adversary with at most $2^{\ell/2-1}-1$ classical queries to the random oracle, its simulation advantage is at most $(n+3)\left(\frac{3}{4}\right)^n.$ Hence exponentially small simulation advantage in $n$.

Sat 26 SeptCryptography and Security
The gist
Certain cryptographic functions are impossible using only classical computers but become achievable with quantum technology. Previous designs assumed quantum attackers had limited power, called NISQ devices, but stronger quantum machines are coming. The authors show you can create a secure one-time memory device assuming attackers can only make classical queries to a random function. Their method uses simple quantum states and prevents attackers from gaining meaningful advantage, even with some quantum computing power.
Open → 2609.32603v1