Postprocessing for quantum random number generators: entropy evaluation and randomness extraction

Xiongfeng Ma, Feihu Xu, He Xu, Xiaoqing Tan, Bing Qi, Hoi-Kwong Lo

Published 2012-07-05, updated 2013-06-22Version 2

Quantum random-number generators (QRNGs) can offer a means to generate information-theoretically provable random numbers, in principle. In practice, unfortunately, the quantum randomness is inevitably mixed with classical randomness due to classical noises. To distill this quantum randomness, one needs to quantify the randomness of the source and apply a randomness extractor. Here, we propose a generic framework for evaluating quantum randomness of real-life QRNGs by min-entropy, and apply it to two different existing quantum random-number systems in the literature. Moreover, we provide a guideline of QRNG data postprocessing for which we implement two information-theoretically provable randomness extractors: Toeplitz-hashing extractor and Trevisan's extractor.