Structured Variational Key Concentration for a Reduced AES Cipher

Quantum Physics arXiv:2609.26800 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 30 Aug 2026] Title:Structured Variational Key Concentration for a Reduced AES Cipher Authors:Xi Li View a PDF of the paper titled Structured Variational Key Concentration for a Reduced AES Cipher, by Xi Li View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Grover search provides the generic quantum baseline for symmetric-key recovery by amplifying a reversible public-verification oracle. We investigate whether public round structure can instead shape a variational key register before exact verification. For simplified AES (S-AES), we construct phase separators from S-box differential-distribution constraints, candidate-key-dependent inverse diagnostics, and a global residual Hamming-shell term. Each component has a reversible compute-phase-uncompute realization. We prove a one-sided completeness statement for these diagnostics and derive a conditional lower-tail bound for false keys under a weakly correlated diagnostic model. On ten random three-pair 16-bit S-AES instances, an 18-layer schedule optimized with Adam achieves a mean public-consistent-key probability of 46.78 percent, ranks the correct key first in every run, and limits the largest observed false-key probability to 1.11 percent. The 16-bit study evaluates the induced key-register dynamics without shot sampling, while a separate gate-level S-DES experiment validates the reversible oracle pattern without a key-space phase table. The results establish a controlled reduced-cipher benchmark; they do not claim an attack on full AES or an asymptotic advantage over Grover. Within these limits, the construction provides a useful framework for analyzing how AES structure can be incorporated into quantum algorithms. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2609.26800 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2609.26800v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.26800 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Xi Li [view email] [v1] Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:26:18 UTC (249 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Structured Variational Key Concentration for a Reduced AES Cipher, by Xi LiView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Ancillary-file links: Ancillary files (details): prl_qaoa_aes_supplement.pdf Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-09 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)