Complex/Dynamical Systems Seminar - Aaron Hagerstrom

Random number generation with optical entropy sources

Dynamical chaos and single photon detection are two physical sources of randomness employed to generate fast, cryptographically secure random numbers. We present an experimental system with both types of randomness: an electro-optic feedback loop incorporating a single-photon detector. 
We describe how the dynamics change from shot noise to deterministic chaos as the photon rate increases, and how the entropy rate can reflect either chaos or shot noise depending on sampling rate and resolution.