Abstract
We give a sieving algorithm for finding pairs of consecutive smooth numbers that utilizes solutions to the Prouhet-Tarry-Escott (PTE) problem. Any such solution induces two degree-n polynomials, a(x) and b(x), that differ by a constant integer C and completely split into linear factors in \(\mathbb {Z}[x]\). It follows that for any \(\ell \in \mathbb {Z}\) such that \(a(\ell ) \equiv b(\ell ) \equiv 0 \bmod {C}\), the two integers \(a(\ell )/C\) and \(b(\ell )/C\) differ by 1 and necessarily contain n factors of roughly the same size. For a fixed smoothness bound B, restricting the search to pairs of integers that are parameterized in this way increases the probability that they are B-smooth. Our algorithm combines a simple sieve with parametrizations given by a collection of solutions to the PTE problem.
The motivation for finding large twin smooth integers lies in their application to compact isogeny-based post-quantum protocols. The recent key exchange scheme B-SIDH and the recent digital signature scheme SQISign both require large primes that lie between two smooth integers; finding such a prime can be seen as a special case of finding twin smooth integers under the additional stipulation that their sum is a prime p.
When searching for cryptographic parameters with \(2^{240} \le p <2^{256}\), an implementation of our sieve found primes p where \(p+1\) and \(p-1\) are \(2^{15}\)-smooth; the smoothest prior parameters had a similar sized prime for which \(p-1\) and \(p+1\) were \(2^{19}\)-smooth. In targeting higher security levels, our sieve found a 376-bit prime lying between two \(2^{21}\)-smooth integers, a 384-bit prime lying between two \(2^{22}\)-smooth integers, and a 512-bit prime lying between two \(2^{28}\)-smooth integers. Our analysis shows that using previously known methods to find high-security instances subject to these smoothness bounds is computationally infeasible.
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Notes
- 1.
The elliptic curves that arise for \(n=10\) and \(n=12\) have Mordell-Weil-groups \(\mathbb {Z}/4\mathbb {Z}\times \mathbb {Z}/2\mathbb {Z}\times \mathbb {Z}\) resp. \(\mathbb {Z}/4\mathbb {Z}\times \mathbb {Z}/2\mathbb {Z}\times \mathbb {Z}\times \mathbb {Z}\). Thus there are eight torsion points in each case, and the non-torsion groups are generated by one resp. two non-torsion points.
- 2.
We assume that the smoothness bound is aggressive enough to make the smooth integers sparse.
- 3.
The total number of inputs required for this (including the ones which lead to non-integer polynomial values) depends on the PTE solution and associated constant in use, and can easily be computed via the CRT approach described before.
- 4.
It is beyond the scope of this work to make any statements about the probability of a prime sum, except to say that in practice we observe that twin smooth sums have a much higher probability of being prime than a random number of the same size.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Patrick Longa for his help with implementing the smoothness sieve in C, and Fabio Campos for running and overseeing some of our experiments.
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Costello, C., Meyer, M., Naehrig, M. (2021). Sieving for Twin Smooth Integers with Solutions to the Prouhet-Tarry-Escott Problem. In: Canteaut, A., Standaert, FX. (eds) Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2021. EUROCRYPT 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12696. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77870-5_10
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