English

CountCrypt: Quantum Cryptography between QCMA and PP

Quantum Physics 2025-10-07 v3 Cryptography and Security

Abstract

We construct a unitary oracle relative to which BQP=QCMA\mathbf{BQP}=\mathbf{QCMA} but quantum-computation-classical-communication (QCCC) commitments and QCCC multiparty non-interactive key exchange exist. We also construct a unitary oracle relative to which BQP=QMA\mathbf{BQP}=\mathbf{QMA}, but quantum lightning (a stronger variant of quantum money) exists. This extends previous work by Kretschmer [Kretschmer, TQC22], which showed that there is a quantum oracle relative to which BQP=QMA\mathbf{BQP}=\mathbf{QMA} but pseudorandm unitaries exist. We also show that (poly-round) QCCC key exchange, QCCC commitments, and two-round quantum key distribution can all be used to build one-way puzzles. One-way puzzles are a version of ``quantum samplable'' one-wayness and are an intermediate primitive between pseudorandom state generators and EFI pairs, the minimal quantum primitive. In particular, one-way puzzles cannot exist if BQP=PP\mathbf{BQP}=\mathbf{PP}. Our results together imply that aside from pseudorandom state generators, there is a large class of quantum cryptographic primitives which can exist even if BQP=QCMA\mathbf{BQP} = \mathbf{QCMA}, but are broken if BQP=PP\mathbf{BQP} = \mathbf{PP}. Furthermore, one-way puzzles are a minimal primitive for this class. We denote this class ``CountCrypt''.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.14792,
  title  = {CountCrypt: Quantum Cryptography between QCMA and PP},
  author = {Eli Goldin and Tomoyuki Morimae and Saachi Mutreja and Takashi Yamakawa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.14792},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

58 pages, 1 figure. Major revision: all separations are with respect to a unitary oracle now

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:27:48.084Z