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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.109

Cloning Games, Black Holes and Cryptography

Authors: Alexander Poremba, Seyoon Ragavan, and Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract

In this work, we introduce a new toolkit for analyzing cloning games, a notion that captures stronger and more quantitative versions of the celebrated quantum no-cloning theorem. This framework allows us to analyze a new cloning game based on binary phase states. Our results provide evidence that these games may be able to overcome important limitations of previous candidates based on BB84 states and subspace coset states: in a model where the adversaries are restricted to making a single oracle query, we show that the binary phase variant is t-copy secure when t = o(n/log n). Moreover, for constant t, we obtain the first optimal bounds of O(2^{-n}), asymptotically matching the value attained by a trivial adversarial strategy. We also show a worst-case to average-case reduction which allows us to show the same quantitative results for the new and natural notion of Haar cloning games. Our analytic toolkit, which we believe will find further applications, is based on binary subtypes and uses novel bounds on the operator norms of block-wise tensor products of matrices. To illustrate the effectiveness of these new techniques, we present two applications: first, in black-hole physics, where our asymptotically optimal bound offers quantitative insights into information scrambling in idealized models of black holes; and second, in unclonable cryptography, where we (a) construct succinct unclonable encryption schemes from the existence of pseudorandom unitaries, and (b) propose and provide evidence for the security of multi-copy unclonable encryption schemes.

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Alexander Poremba, Seyoon Ragavan, and Vinod Vaikuntanathan. Cloning Games, Black Holes and Cryptography. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 109:1-109:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{poremba_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.109,
  author =	{Poremba, Alexander and Ragavan, Seyoon and Vaikuntanathan, Vinod},
  title =	{{Cloning Games, Black Holes and Cryptography}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{109:1--109:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.109},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253961},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.109},
  annote =	{Keywords: Unclonable cryptography, quantum pseudorandomness, black hole physics}
}

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Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.115

On the Cut-Query Complexity of Approximating Max-Cut

Authors: Orestis Plevrakis, Seyoon Ragavan, and S. Matthew Weinberg

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 297, 51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024)

Abstract

We consider the problem of query-efficient global max-cut on a weighted undirected graph in the value oracle model examined by [Rubinstein et al., 2018]. Graph algorithms in this cut query model and other query models have recently been studied for various other problems such as min-cut, connectivity, bipartiteness, and triangle detection. Max-cut in the cut query model can also be viewed as a natural special case of submodular function maximization: on query S ⊆ V, the oracle returns the total weight of the cut between S and V\S. Our first main technical result is a lower bound stating that a deterministic algorithm achieving a c-approximation for any c > 1/2 requires Ω(n) queries. This uses an extension of the cut dimension to rule out approximation (prior work of [Graur et al., 2020] introducing the cut dimension only rules out exact solutions). Secondly, we provide a randomized algorithm with Õ(n) queries that finds a c-approximation for any c < 1. We achieve this using a query-efficient sparsifier for undirected weighted graphs (prior work of [Rubinstein et al., 2018] holds only for unweighted graphs). To complement these results, for most constants c ∈ (0,1], we nail down the query complexity of achieving a c-approximation, for both deterministic and randomized algorithms (up to logarithmic factors). Analogously to general submodular function maximization in the same model, we observe a phase transition at c = 1/2: we design a deterministic algorithm for global c-approximate max-cut in O(log n) queries for any c < 1/2, and show that any randomized algorithm requires Ω(n/log n) queries to find a c-approximate max-cut for any c > 1/2. Additionally, we show that any deterministic algorithm requires Ω(n²) queries to find an exact max-cut (enough to learn the entire graph).

Cite as

Orestis Plevrakis, Seyoon Ragavan, and S. Matthew Weinberg. On the Cut-Query Complexity of Approximating Max-Cut. In 51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 297, pp. 115:1-115:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{plevrakis_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.115,
  author =	{Plevrakis, Orestis and Ragavan, Seyoon and Weinberg, S. Matthew},
  title =	{{On the Cut-Query Complexity of Approximating Max-Cut}},
  booktitle =	{51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024)},
  pages =	{115:1--115:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-322-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{297},
  editor =	{Bringmann, Karl and Grohe, Martin and Puppis, Gabriele and Svensson, Ola},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.115},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-202587},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.115},
  annote =	{Keywords: query complexity, maximum cut, approximation algorithms, graph sparsification}
}

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Documents authored by Ragavan, Seyoon

Cloning Games, Black Holes and Cryptography

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On the Cut-Query Complexity of Approximating Max-Cut

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