| The security of codes, for example in credit card and government information, relies on the fact that the factorization of a large integer N is a rather costly process on a classical digital computer. Such a security is endangered by Shor's algorithm which employs entangled quantum systems to find, with a polynomial number of resources, the period of a function which is connected with the factors of N. We can surely expect a possible future realization of such a method for large numbers, but so far the period of Shor's function has been only computed for the number 15.;Inspired by Shor's idea, our work aims to methods of factorization based on the periodicity measurement of a given continuous periodic "factoring function" which is physically implementable using an analogue computer.;In particular, we have focused on both the theoretical and the experimental analysis of Gauss sums with continuous arguments leading to a new factorization algorithm. The procedure allows, for the first time, to factor several numbers by measuring the periodicity of Gauss sums performing first-order "factoring" interfer ence processes.;We experimentally implemented this idea by exploiting polychromatic optical interference in the visible range with a multi-path interferometer, and achieved the factorization of seven digit numbers.;The physical principle behind this "factoring" interference procedure can be potentially exploited also on entangled systems, as multi-photon entangled states, in order to achieve a polynomial scaling in the number of resources. |
