The programme for the NMC Scientific days is almost complete and we are looking forward to meet in person at the Van der Valk Hotel in Utrecht. During the NMC Scientific Days, keynote lectures will be given by: Helmut Hofer (Princeton Institute for Advanced Study), Natasa Jonoska (University of South Florida), Shafi Goldwasser (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Beeger lecturer) and Joris van der Hoeven, winner of the N.G. de Bruijn Prize (still to be determined).
QuSoft speakers
Lisa Kohl about ‘A Compressed Sigma-Protocol Theory for Lattices’
Σ-Protocols provide a well-understood and widely-used basis for zero-knowledge proofs, allowing a prover to convince a verifier that a committed vector satisfies a constraint C(x)=0 (captured by an arithmetic circuit) without revealing anything about the (typically long) input vector x, besides the veracity of the claim. Using ideas from secure multi-party computation and from so-called Bulletproofs, it has been shown that the communication of Σ-Protocols for proving general constraint-satisfiability problems can be compressed from linear to (poly)logarithmic in the input length, yielding so-called compressed Σ-protocols. In a recent work, which will be the focus of this talk, we present the first framework for compressed Σ-protocols that can be instantiated from lattice-based assumptions, thereby plausibly withstanding even quantum attacks. This is joint work with Thomas Attema and Ronald Cramer.
Maris Ozols about ‘Quantum telepathy for mathematicians’
The goal of this talk is to introduce quantum pseudo-telepathy to a wider audience of mathematicians through the example of quantum nonlocal games. I will try to explain it at three levels of difficulty.
First, I will introduce the celebrated Mermin-Peres magic square game and explain why it has no perfect classical strategy but has a perfect quantum strategy. Next, I will discuss an elegant framework by Arkhipov (https://arxiv.org/abs/1209.3819) that characterizes nonlocal games with perfect quantum strategy in terms of graph planarity. Finally, I will mention a recent homotopical extension of Arkhipov’s framework due to Okay & Raussendorf (https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.03822).
More information
All four mathematics clusters, 4TU.AMI and two NWO Gravitation programmes will organise a parallel session. Further, there will be a parallel session on the History of Mathematics devoted to playing chess, a plenary session by AI & Mathematics and the PWN Committee Innovation, a session by EWM-NL, the Prizes Ceremony, the Pythagoras Prize session, the general annual KWG-meeting, and more. To register and see the full program, please click here.
