Private random number generation through remote atom entanglement

Abstract

Random number generation is vital for a wide range of applications, including numerical simulation, gambling, and cryptography. However, verifying the randomness of a bit stream generated by a device is exceedingly difficult. Even if a sequence of numbers passes all of the standard statistical tests, it is often impossible to certify the authenticity of the device and rule out the possibility that an adversary has loaded a predetermined sequence into an internal memory. Recently, it has been shown that the non-local correlations between entangled quantum systems can be used to verify the generation of true random numbers [1, 2]. This insight enables the construction of a private random number generator whose output can be verified as random through the violation of a Bell inequality, without requiring any assumptions about the internal mechanisms of the device.