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Device-independent randomness expansion with entangled photons

Nature Physics volume 17, pages 452–456 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

With the growing availability of experimental loophole-free Bell tests1,2,3,4,5, it has become possible to implement a new class of device-independent random number generators whose output can be certified6,7 to be uniformly random without requiring a detailed model of the quantum devices used8,9,10. However, all these experiments require many input bits to certify a small number of output bits, and it is an outstanding challenge to develop a system that generates more randomness than is consumed. Here we devise a device-independent spot-checking protocol that consumes only uniform bits without requiring any additional bits with a specific bias. Implemented with a photonic loophole-free Bell test, we can produce 24% more certified output bits (1,181,264,237) than consumed input bits (953,301,640). The experiment ran for 91.0 h, creating randomness at an average rate of 3,606 bits s–1 with a soundness error bounded by 5.7 × 10−7 in the presence of classical side information. Our system allows for greater trust in public sources of randomness, such as randomness beacons11, and may one day enable high-quality private sources of randomness as the device footprint shrinks.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of the experiment and trial structure.
Fig. 2: Source, stations and layout.
Fig. 3: Tradeoff between the expected expansion ratio and the desired success probability.
Fig. 4: Entropies as a function of the number of blocks processed in our protocol run.

Data availability

Source data are available for this paper. All other data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code that produces the results presented in this work is available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Miller and S. Glancy for help with reviewing this paper. This work includes contributions of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which are not subject to US copyright. The use of trade names does not imply endorsement by the US government. The work is supported by the National Science Foundation RAISE-TAQS (award 1839223); European Research Council projects AQUMET (280169) and ERIDIAN (713682); European Union project FET Innovation Launchpad UVALITH (800901); the Spanish MINECO projects OCARINA (grant ref. PGC2018-097056-B-I00), Q-CLOCKS (PCI2018-092973) and the Severo Ochoa programme (SEV-2015-0522); Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca project (2017-SGR-1354); Fundació Privada Cellex and Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA program); Quantum Technology Flagship project macQsimal (820393); Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN ZULF-NMR (766402); and EMPIR project USOQS (17FUN03).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Carlos Abellán & Waldimar Amaya

    Present address: Quside Technologies S.L., Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain

  2. These authors contributed equally: Lynden K. Shalm, Yanbao Zhang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Associate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA

    Lynden K. Shalm & Michael D. Mazurek

  2. Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Lynden K. Shalm, Michael D. Mazurek & Mohammad A. Alhejji

  3. NTT Basic Research Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Atsugi, Japan

    Yanbao Zhang

  4. NTT Research Center for Theoretical Quantum Physics, NTT Corporation, Atsugi, Japan

    Yanbao Zhang

  5. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Joshua C. Bienfang

  6. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA

    Collin Schlager, Martin J. Stevens, Richard P. Mirin, Sae Woo Nam & Emanuel Knill

  7. JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Michael D. Mazurek & Mohammad A. Alhejji

  8. ICFO–Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain

    Carlos Abellán, Waldimar Amaya & Morgan W. Mitchell

  9. ICREA–Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain

    Morgan W. Mitchell

  10. Department of Computer Science, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, and Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Honghao Fu

  11. Department of Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Joel Ornstein

  12. Center for Theory of Quantum Matter, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Emanuel Knill

Authors
  1. Lynden K. Shalm
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Contributions

L.K.S. and Y.Z. led the project and contributed equally to this work. Y.Z. and E.K. devised the protocol, and L.K.S., M.J.S and M.D.M. performed the experiment and collected the data. L.K.S., J.C.B., C.S., M.J.S., M.D.M., C.A., W.A., M.W.M., R.P.M. and S.W.N. contributed to the experimental design and setup. Y.Z., M.A.A., H.F., J.O. and E.K. developed the security analysis method and conducted the data analysis. L.K.S., Y.Z., M.A.A. and E.K. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lynden K. Shalm or Yanbao Zhang.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Renato Renner and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary discussions on the protocol for randomness expansion as well as its implementation and data analysis, Figs. 1–3 and Tables I–V.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 3

Estimated expansion ratios and success probabilities.

Source Data Fig. 4

Running entropies of the inputs and outputs in our experiment.

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Shalm, L.K., Zhang, Y., Bienfang, J.C. et al. Device-independent randomness expansion with entangled photons. Nat. Phys. 17, 452–456 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-01153-4

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