8 Search Results for "Culf, Eric"


Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
The Quantum Smooth Label Cover Problem Is Undecidable

Authors: Eric Culf, Kieran Mastel, Connor Paddock, and Taro Spirig

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 374, 53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026)


Abstract
We show that the quantum smooth label cover problem is undecidable and RE-hard. This sharply contrasts the quantum unique label cover problem, which can be decided efficiently by a result of Kempe, Regev, and Toner (FOCS'08). On the other hand, our result aligns with the RE-hardness of the quantum label cover problem, which follows from the celebrated MIP^* = RE result of Ji, Natarajan, Vidick, Wright, and Yuen (ACM'21). Additionally, we show that the quantum oracularized smooth label cover problem is RE-hard. Our second result fits with the alternative quantum unique games conjecture recently proposed by Mousavi and Spirig (ITCS'25) on the RE-hardness of the quantum oracularized unique label cover problem. Our proof techniques include a quantum version of Feige’s reduction from 3SAT to 3SAT5 (STOC'96) for BCS-MIP^*-protocols, which may be of independent interest.

Cite as

Eric Culf, Kieran Mastel, Connor Paddock, and Taro Spirig. The Quantum Smooth Label Cover Problem Is Undecidable. In 53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 374, pp. 71:1-71:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{culf_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.71,
  author =	{Culf, Eric and Mastel, Kieran and Paddock, Connor and Spirig, Taro},
  title =	{{The Quantum Smooth Label Cover Problem Is Undecidable}},
  booktitle =	{53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026)},
  pages =	{71:1--71:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-428-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{374},
  editor =	{Bhattacharya, Sayan and Nanongkai, Danupon and Benedikt, Michael and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.71},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-264602},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.71},
  annote =	{Keywords: Complexity Theory, Constraint Satisfaction Problems, Hardness of Approximation, Quantum Computing}
}
Document
The Curious Case of "XOR Repetition" of Monogamy-Of-Entanglement Games

Authors: Andrea Coladangelo, Qipeng Liu, and Ziyi Xie

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


Abstract
In this work, we consider "decision" variants of a well-known monogamy-of-entanglement game by Tomamichel, Fehr, Kaniewski, and Wehner [New Journal of Physics '13]. In its original "search" variant, Alice prepares a (possibly entangled) state on registers ABC; register 𝖠, consisting of n qubits, is sent to a Referee, while 𝖡 and 𝖢 are sent to Bob and Charlie; the Referee then measures each qubit in the standard or Hadamard basis (chosen uniformly at random). The basis choices are sent to Bob and Charlie, whose goal is to simultaneously guess the Referee’s n-bit measurement outcome string x. Tomamichel et al. show that the optimal winning probability is cos^{2n}(π/8), following a perfect parallel repetition theorem. We consider the following "decision" variants of this game: - Variant 1, "XOR repetition": Bob and Charlie’s goal is to guess the XOR of all the bits of x. Ananth et al. [Asiacrypt '24] conjectured that the optimal advantage over random guessing decays exponentially in n. Surprisingly, we show that this conjecture is false, and, in fact, there is no decay at all: there exists a strategy that wins with probability cos²(π/8) ≈ 0.85 for any n. Moreover, this strategy does not involve any entanglement between Alice, Bob, and Charlie! - Variant 2, "Goldreich-Levin": The Referee additionally samples a uniformly random n-bit string r that is sent to Bob and Charlie along with the basis choices. Their goal is to guess the parity of r⋅ x. We show that the optimal advantage over random guessing decays exponentially in n for the restricted class of adversaries that do not share entanglement. A similar result was already shown by Champion et al. and Çakan et al.; we give a more direct proof. Showing that Variant 2 is "secure" (i.e., that the optimal winning probability is exponentially close to 1/2) against general adversaries would imply the existence of an information-theoretically "unclonable bit". We put forward a reasonably concrete conjecture that is equivalent to the general security of Variant 2.

Cite as

Andrea Coladangelo, Qipeng Liu, and Ziyi Xie. The Curious Case of "XOR Repetition" of Monogamy-Of-Entanglement Games. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 41:1-41:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{coladangelo_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.41,
  author =	{Coladangelo, Andrea and Liu, Qipeng and Xie, Ziyi},
  title =	{{The Curious Case of "XOR Repetition" of Monogamy-Of-Entanglement Games}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{41:1--41:20},
  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.2026.41},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253281},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.41},
  annote =	{Keywords: quantum information, monogamy of entanglement, unclonable encryption}
}
Document
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.

Cite as

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}
}
Document
A Quantum Cloning Game with Applications to Quantum Position Verification

Authors: Léo Colisson Palais, Llorenç Escolà-Farràs, and Florian Speelman

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 350, 20th Conference on the Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography (TQC 2025)


Abstract
We introduce a quantum cloning game in which k separate collaborative parties receive a classical input, determining which of them has to share a maximally entangled state with an additional party (referee). We provide the optimal winning probability of such a game for every number of parties k, and show that it decays exponentially when the game is played n times in parallel. These results have applications to quantum cryptography, in particular in the topic of quantum position verification, where we show security of the routing protocol (played in parallel), and a variant of it, in the random oracle model.

Cite as

Léo Colisson Palais, Llorenç Escolà-Farràs, and Florian Speelman. A Quantum Cloning Game with Applications to Quantum Position Verification. In 20th Conference on the Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography (TQC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 350, pp. 2:1-2:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{colissonpalais_et_al:LIPIcs.TQC.2025.2,
  author =	{Colisson Palais, L\'{e}o and Escol\`{a}-Farr\`{a}s, Lloren\c{c} and Speelman, Florian},
  title =	{{A Quantum Cloning Game with Applications to Quantum Position Verification}},
  booktitle =	{20th Conference on the Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography (TQC 2025)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-392-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{350},
  editor =	{Fefferman, Bill},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.TQC.2025.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-240513},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.TQC.2025.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantum position verification, cloning game, random oracle, parallel repetition}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
Satisfiability of Commutative vs. Non-Commutative CSPs

Authors: Andrei A. Bulatov and Stanislav Živný

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)


Abstract
The Mermin-Peres magic square is a celebrated example of a system of Boolean linear equations that is not (classically) satisfiable but is satisfiable via linear operators on a Hilbert space of dimension four. A natural question is then, for what kind of problems such a phenomenon occurs? Atserias, Kolaitis, and Severini answered this question for all Boolean Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs): For 0-Valid-SAT, 1-Valid-SAT, 2-SAT, Horn-SAT, and Dual Horn-SAT, classical satisfiability and operator satisfiability is the same and thus there is no gap; for all other Boolean CSPs, these notions differ as there are gaps, i.e., there are unsatisfiable instances that are satisfiable via operators on Hilbert spaces. We generalize their result to CSPs on arbitrary finite domains and give an almost complete classification: First, we show that NP-hard CSPs admit a separation between classical satisfiability and satisfiability via operators on finite- and infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Second, we show that tractable CSPs of bounded width have no satisfiability gaps of any kind. Finally, we show that tractable CSPs of unbounded width can simulate, in a satisfiability-gap-preserving fashion, linear equations over an Abelian group of prime order p; for such CSPs, we obtain a separation of classical satisfiability and satisfiability via operators on infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Furthermore, if p = 2, such CSPs also have gaps separating classical satisfiability and satisfiability via operators on finite- and infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces.

Cite as

Andrei A. Bulatov and Stanislav Živný. Satisfiability of Commutative vs. Non-Commutative CSPs. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 37:1-37:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bulatov_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.37,
  author =	{Bulatov, Andrei A. and \v{Z}ivn\'{y}, Stanislav},
  title =	{{Satisfiability of Commutative vs. Non-Commutative CSPs}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{37:1--37:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.37},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-234149},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.37},
  annote =	{Keywords: constraint satisfaction, quantum CSP, operator CSP}
}
Document
Rank Lower Bounds on Non-Local Quantum Computation

Authors: Vahid R. Asadi, Eric Culf, and Alex May

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 325, 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)


Abstract
A non-local quantum computation (NLQC) replaces an interaction between two quantum systems with a single simultaneous round of communication and shared entanglement. We study two classes of NLQC, f-routing and f-BB84, which are of relevance to classical information theoretic cryptography and quantum position-verification. We give the first non-trivial lower bounds on entanglement in both settings, but are restricted to lower bounding protocols with perfect correctness. Within this setting, we give a lower bound on the Schmidt rank of any entangled state that completes these tasks for a given function f(x,y) in terms of the rank of a matrix g(x,y) whose entries are zero when f(x,y) = 0, and strictly positive otherwise. This also leads to a lower bound on the Schmidt rank in terms of the non-deterministic quantum communication complexity of f(x,y). Because of a relationship between f-routing and the conditional disclosure of secrets (CDS) primitive studied in information theoretic cryptography, we obtain a new technique for lower bounding the randomness complexity of CDS.

Cite as

Vahid R. Asadi, Eric Culf, and Alex May. Rank Lower Bounds on Non-Local Quantum Computation. In 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 325, pp. 11:1-11:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{asadi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.11,
  author =	{Asadi, Vahid R. and Culf, Eric and May, Alex},
  title =	{{Rank Lower Bounds on Non-Local Quantum Computation}},
  booktitle =	{16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)},
  pages =	{11:1--11:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-361-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{325},
  editor =	{Meka, Raghu},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.11},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-226399},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.11},
  annote =	{Keywords: Non-local quantum computation, quantum position-verification, conditional disclosure of secrets}
}
Document
A Quantum Unique Games Conjecture

Authors: Hamoon Mousavi and Taro Spirig

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 325, 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)


Abstract
After the NP-hardness of computational problems such as 3SAT and MaxCut was established, a natural next step was to explore whether these problems remain hard to approximate. While the quantum nonlocal games extensions of some of these problems are known to be hard - indeed undecidable - their inapproximability remains largely unresolved. In this work, we introduce definitions for the quantum extensions of Label-Cover and Unique-Label-Cover. We show that these problems play a similarly crucial role in studying the inapproximability of quantum constraint satisfaction problems as they do in the classical setting.

Cite as

Hamoon Mousavi and Taro Spirig. A Quantum Unique Games Conjecture. In 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 325, pp. 76:1-76:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{mousavi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.76,
  author =	{Mousavi, Hamoon and Spirig, Taro},
  title =	{{A Quantum Unique Games Conjecture}},
  booktitle =	{16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)},
  pages =	{76:1--76:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-361-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{325},
  editor =	{Meka, Raghu},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.76},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-227047},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.76},
  annote =	{Keywords: hardness of approximation, quantum computing, noncommutative constraint satisfaction problems, Fourier analysis}
}
Document
Rigidity for Monogamy-Of-Entanglement Games

Authors: Anne Broadbent and Eric Culf

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 251, 14th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2023)


Abstract
In a monogamy-of-entanglement (MoE) game, two players who do not communicate try to simultaneously guess a referee’s measurement outcome on a shared quantum state they prepared. We study the prototypical example of a game where the referee measures in either the computational or Hadamard basis and informs the players of her choice. We show that this game satisfies a rigidity property similar to what is known for some nonlocal games. That is, in order to win optimally, the players' strategy must be of a specific form, namely a convex combination of four unentangled optimal strategies generated by the Breidbart state. We extend this to show that strategies that win near-optimally must also be near an optimal state of this form. We also show rigidity for multiple copies of the game played in parallel. We give three applications: (1) We construct for the first time a weak string erasure (WSE) scheme where the security does not rely on limitations on the parties' hardware. Instead, we add a prover, which enables security via the rigidity of this MoE game. (2) We show that the WSE scheme can be used to achieve bit commitment in a model where it is impossible classically. (3) We achieve everlasting-secure randomness expansion in the model of trusted but leaky measurement and untrusted preparation and measurements by two isolated devices, while relying only on the temporary assumption of pseudorandom functions. This achieves randomness expansion without the need for shared entanglement.

Cite as

Anne Broadbent and Eric Culf. Rigidity for Monogamy-Of-Entanglement Games. In 14th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 251, pp. 28:1-28:29, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


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@InProceedings{broadbent_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2023.28,
  author =	{Broadbent, Anne and Culf, Eric},
  title =	{{Rigidity for Monogamy-Of-Entanglement Games}},
  booktitle =	{14th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2023)},
  pages =	{28:1--28:29},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-263-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{251},
  editor =	{Tauman Kalai, Yael},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2023.28},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-175319},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2023.28},
  annote =	{Keywords: Rigidity, Self-Testing Monogamy-of-Entanglement Games, Bit Commitment, Randomness Expansion}
}
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