Paper 2025/670

Biextensions in pairing-based cryptography

Abstract

Bilinear pairings constitute a cornerstone of public-key cryptography, where advancements in Tate pairings and their efficient variants have emerged as a critical research domain within cryptographic science. Currently, the computation of pairings can be effectively implemented through three distinct algorithmic approaches: Miller’s algorithm, the elliptic net algorithm (as developed by Stange), and cubical-based algorithms (as proposed by Damien Robert). Biextensions are the geometric object underlying the arithmetic of pairings, and all three approaches can be seen as a different way to represent biextension elements. In this paper, we revisit the biextension geometric point of view for pairing computation and investigate in more detail the cubical representation for pairing-based cryptography. Utilizing the twisting isomorphism, we derive explicit formulas and algorithmic frameworks for the ate pairing and optimal ate pairing computations. Additionally, we present detailed formulas and introduce an optimized shared cubical ladder algorithm for super-optimal ate pairings. Through concrete computational analyses, we compare the performance of our cubical-based methods with the Miller's algorithm on various well-known families of pairing-friendly elliptic curves. Our results demonstrate that the cubical-based algorithm outperforms the Miller's algorithm by bits in certain specific situations, establishing its potential as an alternative for pairing computation.