Verifiable Quantum Advantage and Computation via Quantum Circuit Obfuscation

Abstract

We construct protocols for classically verifiable quantum advantage and classical verification of $\mathsf{BQP}$ computations using \emph{quantum indistinguishability obfuscation} (qiO). Specifically, given qiO and assuming a slightly stronger version of $\mathsf{BQP}\ne \mathsf{BPP}$, we construct a two-message quantum-advantage protocol that is efficiently and publicly verifiable. Our result can be viewed as a rigorous cryptographic foundation for the heuristic quantum advantage proposals based on \emph{peaked random circuit sampling} of Aaronson and Zhang (arXiv:2404.14493). We also construct two simple protocols for classically verifying arbitrary $\mathsf{BQP}$ computations. The first protocol is privately verifiable and assumes only the existence of qiO. This gives a rare example of a nontrivial cryptographic application of (quantum) iO that does not make additional computational hardness assumptions. The second protocol additionally assumes post-quantum one-way functions and is \emph{publicly verifiable}. To our knowledge, this is the first publicly verifiable protocol for classical verification of $\mathsf{BQP}$ computations under computational assumptions in the standard model. As qiO is the basis for our results, we propose an approach to constructing qiO by adapting the local-mixing framework of Canetti--Chamon--Mucciolo--Ruckenstein.