  Demonstrating quantum superiority for some computational task will be a
milestone for quantum technologies and would show that computational advantages
are possible not only with a universal quantum computer but with simpler
physical devices. Linear optics is such a simpler but powerful platform where
classically-hard information processing tasks, such as Boson Sampling, can be
in principle implemented. In this work, we study a fundamentally different type
of computational task to achieve quantum superiority using linear optics,
namely the task of verifying NP-complete problems. We focus on a protocol by
Aaronson et al. (2008) that uses quantum proofs for verification. We show that
the proof states can be implemented in terms of a single photon in an equal
superposition over many optical modes. Similarly, the tests can be performed
using linear-optical transformations consisting of a few operations: a global
permutation of all modes, simple interferometers acting on at most four modes,
and measurement using single-photon detectors. We also show that the protocol
can tolerate experimental imperfections.
