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On protocols for increasing the uniformity of random bits generated with noisy quantum computers

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Abstract

Generating random numbers is important for many real-world applications, including cryptography, statistical sampling and Monte Carlo simulations. Quantum systems subject to a measurement produce random results via Born’s rule, and thus it is natural to study the possibility of using such systems in order to generate high-quality random numbers. However, current quantum devices are subject to errors and noise, which can make the output bits deviate from the uniform distribution. In this work, we propose and analyse two protocols that can be used to increase the uniformity of the bits obtained when running a circuit with a Hadamard gate and a measurement in a noisy quantum computer. These protocols may be used prior to other standard processes, such as randomness amplification. We conduct experiments on both a quantum simulator and a real quantum computer, obtaining results that suggest that these protocols are useful to improve the probability of the generated bits passing statistical tests for uniformity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness from Spain/FEDER under grant MTM-2017-83506-C2-2-P, by Ministry of Science and Innovation from Spain/FEDER under grant RTI2018-098085-B-C44, and by he Regional Ministry of the Principality of Asturias under grants FC-GRUPIN-IDI/2018/000193 and FC-GRUPIN-IDI/2018/000226.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

    Elías F. Combarro & José Ranilla

  2. Openlab, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

    Elías F. Combarro, Federico Carminati & Sofia Vallecorsa

  3. Department of Mathematics, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

    Ignacio F. Rúa

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  1. Elías F. Combarro
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  2. Federico Carminati
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  3. Sofia Vallecorsa
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  5. Ignacio F. Rúa
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Correspondence to José Ranilla.

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Combarro, E.F., Carminati, F., Vallecorsa, S. et al. On protocols for increasing the uniformity of random bits generated with noisy quantum computers. J Supercomput 77, 8063–8081 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-020-03574-7

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