Team uses quantum mechanics to make a factory for random number generators
Jasper Palfree, Gautam Kavuri and Krister Shalm. Image credit: NIST
A team including CU PREP researchers and scientists from CU Boulder and NIST have built the first random number generator using quantum entanglement to produce verifiable random numbers.Ìý
Dubbed CURBy, the produces random numbers on a publicly available website. The randomness can be verified, traced and certified through the team’s implementation of the Twine protocol which adds a digital fingerprint to each set of data. The site produces random numbers by two different methods, by a combination of classical random and pseudorandom numbers and by using quantum randomness that comes from a loophole-free Bell test of entangled photons from Krister Shalm’s laboratory at NIST-Boulder.Ìý
CURBy's quantum random numbers are based on measuring the polarization states of pairs of entangled photons from a single source but at two detectors that are more than 100 meters apart. The polarization states of the two photons are measured essentially simultaneously so that no classical communication is possible between the detectors, even at the speed of light. The measured polarization correlations violate Bell's inequality, soÌýare inherently quantum and nonlocal. The 512-bit random numbersÌýextracted from the experiment andÌýreported by CURBy are fully traceable and certifiable making them both verifiable and cheat-proof.Ìý
The CU Boulder affiliated team includes:Ìý
- Gautam Kavuri, physics graduate student and CU PREP researcher
- Jasper Palfree, CU PREP Post-Graduate
- Dileep Reddy, CU PREP Senior Research Fellow
- Michael Mazurek, CU PREP Postdoctoral Fellow
- Mohammad Alhejji (PhDPhys'23), former CU PREP researcher
- Katherine Stange, Professor of Mathematics
- Paul Beale, Professor of Physics and CU PREP Program Manager
- Emanuel Knill, NIST Physicist and CU Boulder Physics lecturer
- Krister Shalm, NIST Physicist and CU Boulder Physics lecturer, former CU PREP researcherÌý
Their results were recently published in and featured in NIST's recent .Ìý