Verifiable Quantum Advantage and Computation via Quantum Circuit Obfuscation

Abstract:We construct protocols for classically verifiable quantum advantage and classical verification of $\mathsf{BQP}$ computations using \emph{quantum indistinguishability obfuscation} (qiO). Specifically, given qiO and assuming a slightly stronger version of $\mathsf{BQP}\neq\mathsf{BPP}$, we construct a two-message quantum-advantage protocol that is efficiently and publicly verifiable. Our result can be viewed as a rigorous cryptographic foundation for the heuristic quantum advantage proposals based on \emph{peaked random circuit sampling} of Aaronson and Zhang (arXiv:2404.14493). We also construct two simple protocols for classically verifying arbitrary $\mathsf{BQP}$ computations. The first protocol is privately verifiable and assumes only the existence of qiO. This gives a rare example of a nontrivial cryptographic application of (quantum) iO that does not make additional computational hardness assumptions. The second protocol additionally assumes post-quantum one-way functions and is \emph{publicly verifiable}. To our knowledge, this is the first publicly verifiable protocol for classical verification of $\mathsf{BQP}$ computations under computational assumptions in the standard model. We show that all our results hold when qiO is assumed only for ancilla-free unitary circuits. As evidence supporting this assumption, we prove a worst-to-average-case reduction for obfuscating such circuits. This reduction extends the local-mixing framework of Canetti, Chamon, Mucciolo and Ruckenstein (TCC 2024) under quantum analogues of their assumptions.

Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Cryptography and Security (cs.CR)

arXiv:2609.40289 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2609.40289v1 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.40289 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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