Meng Chaoying, Cai Miao, Yang Yufang, Wu Haodong, Li Zhixiang, Ruan Yaping, Zhang Yong, Zhang Han, Xia Keyu, Nori Franco
Opt Express. 2024 May 20;32(11):20207-20217. doi: 10.1364/OE.509601.
Random numbers are at the heart of diverse fields, ranging from simulations of stochastic processes to classical and quantum cryptography. The requirement for true randomness in these applications has motivated various proposals for generating random numbers based on the inherent randomness of quantum systems. The generation of true random numbers with arbitrarily defined probability distributions is highly desirable for applications, but it is very challenging. Here we show that single-photon quantum walks can generate multi-bit random numbers with on-demand probability distributions, when the required "coin" parameters are found with the gradient descent (GD) algorithm. Our theoretical and experimental results exhibit high fidelity for various selected distributions. This GD-enhanced single-photon system provides a convenient way for building flexible and reliable quantum random number generators. Multi-bit random numbers are a necessary resource for high-dimensional quantum key distribution.
随机数是众多领域的核心，从随机过程的模拟到经典和量子密码学。这些应用中对真随机数的需求推动了基于量子系统固有随机性生成随机数的各种提议。对于应用而言，生成具有任意定义概率分布的真随机数非常理想，但极具挑战性。在此我们表明，当通过梯度下降（GD）算法找到所需的“硬币”参数时，单光子量子行走可以生成具有按需概率分布的多位随机数。我们的理论和实验结果对于各种选定分布都展现出高保真度。这种GD增强的单光子系统为构建灵活可靠的量子随机数发生器提供了一种便捷方式。多位随机数是高维量子密钥分发的必要资源。
