{"paper":{"title":"A Birthday Paradox for Markov chains with an optimal bound for collision in the Pollard Rho algorithm for discrete logarithm","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["math.CO"],"primary_cat":"math.PR","authors_text":"Jeong Han Kim, Prasad Tetali, Ravi Montenegro, Yuval Peres","submitted_at":"2007-12-03T07:16:00Z","abstract_excerpt":"We show a Birthday Paradox for self-intersections of Markov chains with uniform stationary distribution. As an application, we analyze Pollard's Rho algorithm for finding the discrete logarithm in a cyclic group $G$ and find that if the partition in the algorithm is given by a random oracle, then with high probability a collision occurs in $\\Theta(\\sqrt{|G|})$ steps. Moreover, for the parallelized distinguished points algorithm on $J$ processors we find that $\\Theta(\\sqrt{|G|}/J)$ steps suffices. These are the first proofs of the correct order bounds which do not assume that every step of the "},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"0712.0220","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}