Following Forrelation – quantum algorithms in exploring Boolean functions' spectra

Abstract

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Here we revisit the quantum algorithms for obtaining Forrelation [Aaronson et al., 2015] values to evaluate some of the well-known cryptographically significant spectra of Boolean functions, namely the Walsh spectrum, the cross-correlation spectrum, and the autocorrelation spectrum. We introduce the existing 2-fold Forrelation formulation with bent duality-based promise problems as desirable instantiations. Next, we concentrate on the 3-fold version through two approaches. First, we judiciously set up some of the functions in 3-fold Forrelation so that given oracle access, one can sample from the Walsh Spectrum of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$ f $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>. Using this, we obtain improved results than what one can achieve by exploiting the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm. In turn, it has implications in resiliency checking. Furthermore, we use a similar idea to obtain a technique in estimating the cross-correlation (and thus autocorrelation) value at any point, improving upon the existing algorithms. Finally, we tweak the quantum algorithm with the superposition of linear functions to obtain a cross-correlation sampling technique. This is the first cross-correlation sampling algorithm with constant query complexity to the best of our knowledge. This also provides a strategy to check if two functions are uncorrelated of degree <inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$ m $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>. We further modify this using Dicke states so that the time complexity reduces, particularly for constant values of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M3">\begin{document}$ m $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>.</p>