How Certified Ground State Energy works

You do the first five steps and place your bid when you submit. We do the rest.

You do

1. Define.Pick a molecule from our catalog of PubChemQC molecules, or upload your own FCIDUMP file. We check that it is a valid FCIDUMP, and you confirm it is the Hamiltonian you want certified.
2. Prepare.Set your accuracy target, your bid and a deadline of 30, 60 or 90 days.
3. Confirm.Confirm the details of your order. We compute your file's SHA-256 fingerprint. Every later step is tied to this fingerprint, so a result can never be attached to a different file.
4. Submit.Submit your order. Nothing is charged at this point.
5. Job Canceled.You can cancel any time before we accept your bid, and you owe nothing.

We do

6. Job Accepted / Job Declined.We review your bid and accept or decline it. Once accepted, your bid amount is the fee.
7. Job In Progress.We compute lower and upper bounds on the ground-state energy of your Hamiltonian, together with a certificate. The certificate is checked by a program whose soundness is proven in Coq: if the program accepts a certificate for a Hamiltonian, the bounds hold for that Hamiltonian. You can follow every step on your job page.
8. Job Completed.By your deadline, you get a zero-knowledge proof, generated with SP1 and wrapped as a Groth16 proof, that a result meeting your target exists for your file. Inside SP1, the checking program reads your file and computes its fingerprint, checks the certificate, confirms that the bounds meet your accuracy target, and commits to the bounds by computing the SHA-256 hash of the bounds together with a secret 256-bit random value. The Groth16 wrap is what makes the proof zero-knowledge: it reveals only the values listed below. The proof shows you:

   • your file's fingerprint;
   • that your accuracy target is met;
   • the commitment.

   It does not show the bounds, and the commitment cannot be used to guess them. We do not publish this proof. You can verify this proof yourself, so you know the work is done before you pay. If we cannot reach your target by the deadline, the job fails and you owe nothing.

9. Invoice Sent.We email you an invoice for the fee, due on receipt.
10. Result Delivered.Once you pay, we send you:

    • the certified lower and upper bounds;
    • the secret random value used in the commitment;
    • a final SP1 Groth16 proof showing the same fingerprint, the same commitment, and the bounds.

    Your certified result is guaranteed to:

    • verify with the SP1 verifier and our published verification key;
    • carry your file's fingerprint;
    • match the commitment in the proof you received before paying;
    • reproduce that commitment from the bounds and the secret value.

    Together, these guarantee that your result is exactly the one promised, for exactly the file you submitted.

11. Job Concluded.Everything is delivered and paid, and the job is closed.

After the job

We delete your file from our active systems within 30 days after the job ends. We keep only the fingerprint, the bounds, the proofs and the order record, as described in the BECOME Data Handling Policy.