Instantiating Microcrypt: Obstacles and opportunities via tailored state certification

📅 2026-09-14
📈 Citations: 1
Influential: 0
📄 PDF
🤖 AI Summary
研究证明了HPS假设成立则单向函数存在,通过定制状态认证协议构建单向谜题,为经典密码学提供了新的量子假设。
📝 Abstract
Recent work has introduced the Hamiltonian phase state (HPS) assumptions, which postulate that Hamiltonian phase states can be used to instantiate pseudorandom and one-way state generators. Additionally, it has been conjectured that these assumptions can be true, even if one-way functions do not exist. This is exciting, because if true, then the HPS assumptions provide a route to the instantiation of Microcrypt. In this work we falsify this conjecture, by proving that if the HPS assumptions are true, then one-way functions exist. While this removes the possibility of instantiating genuine Microcrypt cryptography with Hamiltonian phase states, it shows that the HPS assumptions provide novel inherently quantum assumptions for the construction of classical cryptography. Technically we achieve this via a method for the construction of one-way puzzles from one-way state generators and tailored"measure first, ask later"state certification protocols. This generalizes prior constructions of one-way puzzles from one-way state generators via classical shadows and allows us to relate properties of the one-way puzzle to properties of the state certification protocol used in the construction. Specifically, if the state certification protocol admits efficient classical post-processing then one obtains an efficiently verifiable one-way puzzle, and if the state certification protocol can be efficiently classically simulated in a certain sense, then one obtains a classical one-way puzzle, which implies one-way functions. The latter observation allows us to prove that the HPS assumptions imply one-way functions, by exploiting properties of state certification protocols for phase states. The former observation provides a new toolbox for the construction of efficiently verifiable one-way puzzles by exploiting tailored state certification protocols for pseudorandom and one-way state generators.
Problem

Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.

Hamiltonian phase state
one-way functions
Microcrypt
Innovation

Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.

Hamiltonian phase state assumptions
one-way functions
state certification protocols
efficiently verifiable one-way puzzles
quantum cryptography
🔎 Similar Papers
No similar papers found.
💼 Related Jobs
No related jobs found.
Jose Carrasco
Jose Carrasco
Dahlem Center for Complex Quantum Systems, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Jens Eisert
Jens Eisert
Professor of Quantum Physics at Freie Universität Berlin, Fraunhofer HHI and Helmholtz Center Berlin
Many-body physicsquantum information theoryquantum technologiesquantum simulationtensor networks
Soumik Ghosh
Soumik Ghosh
University of Chicago
Quantum ComputingQuantum Complexity Theory
Dominik Hangleiter
Dominik Hangleiter
Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, UC Berkeley
quantum computingphilosophy of science
N
Nicky Kai Hong Li
Technische Universität Wien, Atominstitut, Stadionallee 2, 1020 Vienna, Austria; Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, TU Wien, 1020 Vienna, Austria; Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), Austrian Academy of Sciences, Boltzmanngasse 3, 1090 Vienna, Austria
R
Ryan Sweke
African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), South Africa; Department of Mathematical Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa; National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS), South Africa