RLWE and PLWE over cyclotomic fields are not equivalent

Abstract: We prove that the Ring Learning With Errors (RLWE) and the Polynomial Learning With Errors (PLWE) problems over the cyclotomic field $\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_n)$ are not equivalent. Precisely, we show that reducing one problem to the other increases the noise by a factor that is more than polynomial in $n$. We do so by providing a lower bound, holding for infinitely many positive integers $n$, for the condition number of the Vandermonde matrix of the $n$th cyclotomic polynomial.