Axial Correlation Revivals and Number Factorization with Structured Random Waves

Abstract

Number factorization is instrumental in cybersecurity and machine-learning applications, for example. Although quantum protocols have enabled remarkable breakthroughs here, their limitations have spurred classical alternatives undergirded by the physics of superposition of coherent waves, but these are extremely difficult to implement under realistic noisy environments. The authors propose and demonstrate with random optical waves a factoring protocol that is free from this shortcoming. Their theory also exposes a fundamental link between statistical optics and number theory. This protocol may trigger advances in factoring with acoustic and matter waves as well.

Topics & Concepts