The Gap Is Sensitive to Size of Preimages: Collapsing Property Doesn't Go Beyond Quantum Collision-Resistance for Preimages Bounded Hash Functions

As an enhancement of quantum collision-resistance, the collapsing property of hash functions proposed by Unruh (EUROCRYPT 2016) emphasizes the hardness for distinguishing a superposition state of a hash value from a collapsed one. The collapsing property trivially implies the quantum collision-resistance. However, it remains to be unknown whether there is a reduction from the collapsing hash functions to the quantum collision-resistant hash functions. In this paper, we further study the relations between these two properties and derive two intriguing results as follows:

-Firstly, when the size of preimages of each hash value is bounded by some polynomial, we demonstrate that the collapsing property and the collision-resistance must hold simultaneously. This result is proved via a semi-black-box manner by taking advantage of the invertibility of a unitary quantum circuit. -Next, we further consider the relations between these two properties in the exponential-sized preimages case. By giving a construction of polynomial bounded hash functions, which preserves the quantum collision-resistance, we show the existence of collapsing hash functions is implied by the quantum collision-resistant hash functions when the size of preimages is not too large to the expected value.

Our results indicate that the gap between these two properties is sensitive to the size of preimages. As a corollary, our results also reveal the non-existence of polynomial bounded equivocal collision-resistant hash functions.