Daqing Wan

Daqing Wan

van Emde Boas (1981) conjectured that computing a shortest non-zero vector of a lattice in an Euclidean space is NP-hard. In this paper, we prove that this conjecture is true and hence de-randomize the classical randomness result of Ajtai (1998). Our proof builds on the construction of Bennet-Peifert (2023) on locally dense lattices via Reed-Solomon codes, and depends crucially on the work of Deligne on the Weil conjectures for higher dimensional varieties over finite fields.

Qi Cheng, Daqing Wan, Jincheng Zhuang

In the recent breakthrough paper by Barbulescu, Gaudry, Joux and Thom{é}, a quasi-polynomial time algorithm (QPA) is proposed for the discrete logarithm problem over finite fields of small characteristic. The time complexity analysis of the algorithm is based on several heuristics presented in their paper. We show that some of the heuristics are problematic in their original forms, in particular, when the field is not a Kummer extension. We believe that the basic idea behind the new approach should still work, and propose a fix to the algorithm in non-Kummer cases, without altering the quasi-polynomial time complexity. The modified algorithm is also heuristic. Further study is required in order to fully understand the effectiveness of the new approach.