The Frozen Token Reaches Quantum: a complete, pre-registered map of a deterministic single-token encoder's monitoring laws on a real quantum processor — fingerprint, privacy, integrity, qubit health, drift, and a molecular-state twin
Randolph James Ferlic, Kimberly Kate Ferlic
The Frozen Token Reaches Quantum: a complete, pre-registered map of a deterministic single-token encoder's monitoring laws on a real quantum processor — fingerprint, privacy, integrity, qubit health, drift, and a molecular-state twin Randolph James Ferlic, M.D. and Kimberly Kate Ferlic — Fieldstone Analytics, LLC, Austin, TX, USA Preprint · Zenodo DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23670079 · CC-BY 4.0 · Community: spiral-domain-encoder-campaign · This record characterizes previously filed and published methods applied to a new signal source (a quantum processor's measurement outputs) and discloses no new patentable subject matter; the one candidate new application (client-side quantum-job attestation) was deliberately not pursued as intellectual property — see the notice below. Abstract A frozen, deterministic single-token encoder reduces a window of inputs, by a fixed computation, to one 8-bit token and a bounded ≤256-cell lookup, with the nearest-centroid distance serving as a label-free novelty score. A prior program established, across many classical sensing modalities, a predictive theory of this encoder — a competence-zone separability law, a per-entity self-twin law, a compose-versus-recommission law, a cost-not-accuracy law, a deployment-sizing law, a privacy-inversion bound, a safety-interlock characterization, and a geometry-gated drift-adaptation capability. This record asks whether those laws extend to a new kind of entity: a real cloud quantum processor, probed only through the data a present-day gate-model machine returns — measurement counts (single-shot in-phase/quadrature readout is no longer exposed). Established by a pre-registration with frozen falsifiable bands and a simulate-then-validate-on-hardware discipline, the answer is that the monitoring laws reach a quantum processor essentially in full, from counts alone, with no new algorithm. A frozen 1-byte token fingerprints which of three IBM Heron-r2 156-qubit backends ran a job (balanced accuracy 1.00; chance 0.333), proves the signature stable rather than shot-noise (same-device test-retest 0.65 ≪ 1.00), exposes a privacy-inversion (device re-identification 1.00 under an abstracted backend), acts as a result-integrity dead-switch (wrong-device 1.00; gross tamper ≥1σ 0.98–1.00, including a real circuit-level tamper at 1.00 with the novelty spiking ~95× and no cheap null-space evasion; honest subtle-tamper blind spot 0.51), recovers a device's qubit-level calibration ranking from a four-second probe (Spearman 0.88; eight of ten worst qubits; generalizing to a second device at 0.86), and builds a molecular-state twin (H₂ on real hardware: bond-distortion Spearman 1.00; energy ordering 0.771; distortion-twin robust across a finer 12-geometry ladder and two Heron devices, 0.96–0.99). The keystone laws transfer: the separability screen forecasts reach when matched to the monitor's geometry (matched 1.00; generic 0.69, a characterized blind spot); cost-not-accuracy holds (byte = 200-tree forest, Δ0.00); sizing holds (≈4 commissioning sub-batches for fingerprinting, ≈8 for integrity); compose-versus-recommission holds exactly and closes a clean division of labor with the drift law. A hybrid classical→quantum→LLM pipeline monitor localizes which stage faulted at 100% for three bytes. Temporal drift (QF-2) is positive and tracks the device's calibration state rather than the clock — over seven snapshots across nine days the token's label-free novelty tracks IBM's own reported readout error at Spearman +0.89, more tightly than elapsed time (+0.68), because the device recalibrates ~daily so calibration drift is recal-cyclic (the novelty climbs and then falls back as the device is recalibrated, and the token follows it up and back down) and it tracks readout-layer drift specifically, not gate drift (+0.64), C10 reaching the quantum service-life axis, honestly scoped as a bounded n=7 result. Honest negatives are reported with equal weight (no untrained quantum-feature-map advantage, no label-derivative "synergy," no cheap two-qubit-gate-error readout). The transferable lesson: the cheapest possible deterministic monitor — one frozen byte — reaches the most advanced computing hardware we have, as a fingerprint, a privacy probe, an integrity dead-switch, and a health and drift gauge, from the measurement counts the machine already returns, without a new algorithm or a gradient. Highlights · The monitoring laws reach a real quantum processor from measurement counts alone — no new algorithm. A frozen 1-byte token fingerprints which of three IBM Heron-r2 backends ran a job (1.00; chance 0.333) and the test-retest control (same device 0.65 ≪ cross-device 1.00) proves it is a stable device signature, not shot noise. · A privacy inversion on cloud quantum. An "anonymized" backend is re-identifiable from job counts (QF-4, re-identification 1.00) — extending the program's confidentiality-is-not-anonymity bound to a quantum processor; dual-use (user-side audit / provider side-channel). · A result-integrity dead-switch with a declared blind spot. From counts, label-free: trips on a wrong/substituted device (1.00) and on gross result tampering (≥1σ, 0.98–1.00, clean dose-response) — including a real circuit-level tamper (an X-flip of half the register before measurement) at 1.00 with the novelty spiking ~95×, with no cheap null-space evasion (an adaptive quiet-direction override is caught immediately, 1.00) and no false trip on a genuine same-device re-run (0.50) — and honestly fails on subtle device-consistent (on-manifold) tampering (0.51) — defense-in-depth, not a cryptographic verifier. · Qubit-level health from a four-second probe. The token recovers the vendor's own readout-error calibration ranking (Spearman 0.88, 156 qubits) and flags eight of its ten worst qubits — a cheap, fresh, label-free health map that generalizes to a second Heron device (Spearman 0.86 at matched shots). · A molecular-state digital twin on real hardware. Commissioned on H₂'s equilibrium geometry, the token's label-free novelty tracks bond distortion (Spearman 1.00) and preserves the dissociation-energy ordering (0.771), on the device's noisy prepared state — the filed self-twin on a quantum-chemistry target; the distortion-twin is robust across a finer 12-geometry ladder and two Heron devices (0.96–0.99), its finer energy recovery shot-limited rather than device-limited. · The keystone laws transfer. The separability screen forecasts monitor reach iff matched to the monitor's geometry (matched 1.00; a generic two-class screen 0.69, blind to additive tamper); cost-not-accuracy holds (byte equals a 200-tree forest, Δ0.00); sizing holds (≈4/≈8 commissioning sub-batches); and compose-versus-recommission holds exactly — a device-A monitor flags a healthy device B at 100% and must be recommissioned, closing a clean division of labor with the drift law (small within-device drift is the drift law's regime; large cross-device shift is recommission's). · A three-byte hybrid-pipeline monitor. An array of 1-byte self-twins localizes which stage of a classical→quantum→LLM pipeline faulted at 100%, provided each stage is probed with the matched geometry (workload self-twin for covariate faults; a fixed reference probe for the quantum stage). · Honest negatives, and no new intellectual property. An untrained quantum feature-map carries no classical-data advantage, stacking label-derivative codebooks yields no super-additive "synergy," and a cheap echo probe cannot rank small two-qubit gate errors from counts. Every result is the filed, published self-twin applied to a new signal source; the one candidate new application (client-side quantum-job attestation) was weighed as intellectual property and deliberately not pursued, the chosen protection being this publication. · Trust in a cloud the user cannot see, at near-zero cost. The self-twin triad answers the practical cloud-quantum questions — did my job run on the device I was allocated (QF-1), is the abstracted backend unlinkable (QF-4; no), was my result substituted or grossly corrupted (QF-5), which qubits were healthy at run time (QF-6) — from the measurement histogram the user already receives, with no provider cooperation, trusted server, or extra circuits. The provider-side alternatives (randomized benchmarking, tomography, cryptographic verification) spend many designed circuits, privileged access, or interaction; this is the "read the receipt you already have" layer, and it is defense-in-depth beneath verification, not a replacement for it. · One primitive, more than twenty orders of magnitude. The identical mechanism now monitors a vibrating bearing, an electrocardiogram, a radio emitter, an industrial audio machine, and the measurement readout of a 156-qubit superconducting processor — a single cheap, deterministic, auditable primitive reaching the exotic end of the computing-substrate spectrum, the strongest evidence yet for the program's cost-not-accuracy premise (see the breadth figure). · Temporal drift (QF-2) is positive and vendor-corroborated — the token tracks the device's calibration *state*, not the clock. Over seven snapshots across nine days and six recalibration cycles, the token's label-free novelty tracks IBM's own historical reported readout error at Spearman +0.89 — more tightly than elapsed time (+0.68) — and the two-qubit gate error at only +0.64. Because the device recalibrates ~daily, calibration drift is recal-cyclic (the novelty rises, then is recalibrated back toward baseline), and the token follows the calibration state up and back down: the two late snapshots have low novelty and low reported readout error even though their gate error is the worst of the series. C10 on the quantum service-life axis, honestly bounded at n=7. The transferable lesson A single, auditable, sub-milliwatt monitoring primitive — one frozen deterministic byte — now d
•Oct 26, 2026•0 citations