At certain points in the circuit, we need to constrain cells in
advice columns to equal a fixed constant. Instead of defining a
new fixed column for each constant, we pass around a single
shared by all chips, that is included in the permutation over all
advice columns.
This lets us load all needed constants into a single column and
directly constrain advice cells with an equality constraint.
Using these in `OrchardFixedBases::{generator, u}` instead of the
`impl From<OrchardFixedBasesFull> for OrchardFixedBase` means we avoid
computing the Lagrange coefficients for the generator (which were then
immediately dropped).
This decreases proving time in the Action circuit by 53%.
In Orchard nullifier derivation, we multiply the fixed base
K^Orchard by a value encoded as a base field element. This commit
introduces an API that allows using a base field element as the
"scalar" in fixed-base scalar multiplication.
The API currently assumes that the base field element is output by
another instruction (i.e. there is no instruction to directly
witness it).
Fixed-base scalar mul makes use of the add_incomplete and add
instructions internally. The full-width and short signed share
some common logic, which is captured in chip::mul_fixed.rs.
The signed short variant introduces additional logic to handle
the scalar's sign. This is done in the submodule mul_fixed::short.
therealyingtong
Jack Grigg