{
  "abstract": "Quantum Fourier sampling may help audit the spectral learnability of delay-based physical unclonable functions (PUFs). We ask whether that promise survives access matching, a strong classical comparator, and oracle synthesis. Three gates structure the evaluation. Structure: low degree is not small support at reachable challenge lengths; for 4-XOR at $n=14$, degree $\\le d_f(0.1)$ admits $91\\%$ of all $2^n$ characters and the median $90\\%$-mass set spans a third of the spectrum. Algorithmics: constructing the phase oracle logically implies classical membership access, making Kushilevitz--Mansour the correct baseline; across 45 tasks it exhausts each finite domain, and no 4-XOR ideal-sampling case reaches $90\\%$ mass within $2^n$ calls. A quantum-kernel diagnostic appears more favorable, with geometric difference rising to $2.151$ at $N=512$ challenges, but it correlates $0.991$ with $1/\\sqrt{λ_{\\min}(K_C)}$ for the classical Gram matrix $K_C$, and the 4-XOR label-complexity ratio does not exceed a balance-preserving permutation null ($p=0.930$). Trace-normalized geometric difference can therefore grow through classical ill-conditioning alone, without task-label alignment. Implementation: a simulator-validated fixed-point phase oracle based on the quantum Fourier transform admits an $18.9\\%$ routed-depth reduction, yet the least certified precisions have estimated durations of $1.18$--$1.55\\times$ the median dephasing time $T_2$ of the mapped qubits on a static backend snapshot, without hardware execution. We find no end-to-end advantage in the evaluated regime, although ideal sampling does use fewer coherent calls on the thresholded task. The contribution is the Three-Gate Quantum Audit Protocol: a reproducible procedure separating an ideal query advantage from a realizable security benefit. This is not a claim about deployed silicon and not an impossibility result.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.02636",
  "author_total": 3,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Owen Friedewald"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ali Shiri Sichani"
    },
    {
      "name": "Chi-Ren Shyu"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9mn4fnj8x13kn.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.02636",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "9mn4fnj8x13kn",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.02636",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cs.CR"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cs.LG"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "quant-ph"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1708|Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220357829",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.02636",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-02",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9mn4fnj8x13kn.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:26:45Z",
      "native_id": "2610.02636",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.02636"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:quant-ph",
      "subfield": "quantum"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Where Quantum Fourier Sampling Stops Short: A Three-Gate Audit Protocol for Delay-PUF Security Models",
  "title_text": "Where Quantum Fourier Sampling Stops Short: A Three-Gate Audit Protocol for Delay-PUF Security Models",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:26:45Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9mn4fnj8x13kn",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}