Random access coding is an information task that has been extensively studied and found many applications in quantum information. In this scenario, Alice receives an $n$-bit string $x$, and wishes to encode $x$ into a quantum state $rho_x$, such that
Bob, when receiving the state $rho_x$, can choose any bit $i in [n]$ and recover the input bit $x_i$ with high probability. Here we study two variants: parity-oblivious random access codes, where we impose the cryptographic property that Bob cannot infer any information about the parity of any subset of bits of the input apart from the single bits $x_i$; and even-parity-oblivious random access codes, where Bob cannot infer any information about the parity of any even-size subset of bits of the input. In this paper, we provide the optimal bounds for parity-oblivious quantum random access codes and show that they are asymptotically better than the optimal classical ones. Our results provide a large non-contextuality inequality violation and resolve the main open problem in a work of Spekkens, Buzacott, Keehn, Toner, and Pryde (2009). Second, we provide the optimal bounds for even-parity-oblivious random access codes by proving their equivalence to a non-local game and by providing tight bounds for the success probability of the non-local game via semidefinite programming. In the case of even-parity-oblivious random access codes, the cryptographic property holds also in the device-independent model.
Oblivious transfer is a fundamental cryptographic primitive in which Bob transfers one of two bits to Alice in such a way that Bob cannot know which of the two bits Alice has learned. We present an optimal security bound for quantum oblivious transfe
r protocols under a natural and demanding definition of what it means for Alice to cheat. Our lower bound is a smooth tradeoff between the probability B with which Bob can guess Alices bit choice and the probability A with which Alice can guess both of Bobs bits given that she learns one of the bits with certainty. We prove that 2B + A is greater than or equal to 2 in any quantum protocol for oblivious transfer, from which it follows that one of the two parties must be able to cheat with probability at least 2/3. We prove that this bound is optimal by exhibiting a family of protocols whose cheating probabilities can be made arbitrarily close to any point on the tradeoff curve.
