Fermi Ma

Understanding how fast physical systems can resemble Haar-random unitaries is a fundamental question in physics. Many experiments of interest in quantum gravity and many-body physics, including the butterfly effect in quantum information scrambling and the Hayden-Preskill thought experiment, involve queries to a random unitary~$U$ alongside its inverse~$U^\dagger$, conjugate~$U^*$, and transpose~$U^T$. However, conventional notions of approximate unitary designs and pseudorandom unitaries (PRUs) fail to capture these experiments. In this work, we introduce and construct strong unitary designs and strong PRUs that remain robust under all such queries. Our constructions achieve the optimal circuit depth of $\mathcal{O}(\log n)$ for systems of $n$ qubits. We further show that strong unitary designs can form in circuit depth $\mathcal{O}(\log^2 n)$ in circuits composed of independent two-qubit Haar-random gates, and that strong PRUs can form in circuit depth $\poly(\log n)$ in circuits with no ancilla qubits. Our results provide an operational proof of the fast scrambling conjecture from black hole physics: every observable feature of the fastest scrambling quantum systems reproduces Haar-random behavior at logarithmic times.

We study the error correcting properties of Haar random codes, in which a $K$-dimensional code space $\bC \subseteq \C^N$ is chosen at random from the Haar distribution. Our main result is that Haar random codes can approximately correct errors up to the quantum Hamming bound, meaning that a set of $m$ Pauli errors can be approximately corrected so long as $mK \ll N$. This is the strongest bound known for any family of quantum error correcting codes (QECs), and continues a line of work showing that approximate QECs can significantly outperform exact QECs [LNCY97,CGS05,BGG24]. Our proof relies on a recent matrix concentration result of Bandeira, Boedihardjo, and van Handel [BBV23].

We construct the first constant-round protocols for secure quantum computation in the two-party (2PQC) and multi-party (MPQC) settings with security against malicious adversaries. Our protocols are in the common random string (CRS) model. - Assuming two-message oblivious transfer (OT), we obtain (i) three-message 2PQC, and (ii) five-round MPQC with only three rounds of online (input-dependent) communication; such OT is known from quantum-hard Learning with Errors (QLWE). - Assuming sub-exponential hardness of QLWE, we obtain (i) three-round 2PQC with two online rounds and (ii) four-round MPQC with two online rounds. - When only one (out of two) parties receives output, we achieve minimal interaction (two messages) from two-message OT; classically, such protocols are known as non-interactive secure computation (NISC), and our result constitutes the first maliciously-secure quantum NISC. Additionally assuming reusable malicious designated-verifier NIZK arguments for NP (MDV-NIZKs), we give the first MDV-NIZKs for QMA that only require one copy of the witness. Finally, we perform a preliminary investigation into two-round secure quantum computation where each party must obtain output. On the negative side, we identify a broad class of simulation strategies that suffice for classical two-round secure computation that are unlikely to work in the quantum setting. Next, as a proof-of-concept, we show that two-round secure quantum computation exists with respect to a quantum oracle.

We prove that Kilian's four-message succinct argument system is post-quantum secure in the standard model when instantiated with any probabilistically checkable proof and any collapsing hash function (which in turn exist based on the post-quantum hardness of Learning with Errors). At the heart of our proof is a new "measure-and-repair" quantum rewinding procedure that achieves asymptotically optimal knowledge error.

Abstract MiniQCrypt is a world where quantum-secure one-way functions exist, and quantum communication is possible. We construct an oblivious transfer (OT) protocol in MiniQCrypt that achieves simulation-security against malicious quantum polynomial-time adversaries, building on the foundational work of Bennett, Brassard, Crépeau and Skubiszewska (CRYPTO 1991). Combining the OT protocol with prior works, we obtain secure two-party and multi-party computation protocols also in MiniQCrypt. This is in contrast to the classical world, where it is widely believed that one-way functions alone do not give us OT.

Abstract We investigate the round complexity of maliciously-secure two-party quantum computation (2PQC) with setup, and obtain the following results: - A three-message protocol (two-message if only one party receives output) in the common random string (CRS) model assuming classical two-message oblivious transfer (OT) with post-quantum malicious security. This round complexity is optimal for the sequential communication setting. Under the additional assumption of reusable malicious designated-verifier non-interactive zero-knowledge (MDV-NIZK) arguments for NP, our techniques give an MDV-NIZK for QMA. Each of the assumptions mentioned above is known from the quantum hardness of learning with errors (QLWE). - A protocol with two simultaneous rounds of communication, in a quantum preprocessing model, assuming sub-exponential QLWE. In fact, we construct a three-round protocol in the CRS model with only two rounds of online communication, which implies the above result. Along the way, we develop a new delayed simulation technique that we call simulation via teleportation, which may be useful in other settings. In addition, we perform a preliminary investigation into barriers and possible approaches for two round 2PQC in the CRS model, including an impossibility result for a natural class of simulators, and a proof-of-concept construction from a strong form of quantum virtual black-box (VBB) obfuscation. Prior to our work, maliciously-secure 2PQC required round complexity linear in the size of the quantum circuit.