Random Number Generation from Pulsars

TL;DR

This paper proposes using pulsar signal timing variations as a natural entropy source for generating random numbers, evaluating their quality through cryptographic modeling and statistical testing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel RNG method based on pulsar timing data and analyzes its entropy and randomness quality using cryptographic and statistical approaches.

Findings

Pulsar timing variations provide a viable entropy source for RNGs.

The pulsar RNG passes standard statistical randomness tests.

Cryptographic modeling shows the RNG's output is close to ideal randomness.

Abstract

Pulsars exhibit signals with precise inter-arrival times that are on the order of milliseconds to seconds, depending on the individual pulsar. There are subtle variations in the timing of pulsar signals. We show that these variations can serve as a natural entropy source for the creation of Random Number Generators (RNGs). We also explore the effects of using randomness extractors to increase the entropy of random bits extracted from Pulsar timing data. To evaluate the quality of the Pulsar RNG, we model its entropy as a $k$-source and use well-known cryptographic results to show its closeness to a theoretically ideal uniformly random source. To remain consistent with prior work, we also show that the Pulsar RNG passes well-known statistical tests such as the NIST test suite.