In this paper we study the separation between the deterministic (classical) query complexity ($D$) and the exact quantum query complexity ($Q_E$) of several Boolean function classes using the parity decision tree method. We first define the Query Friendly (QF) functions on $n$ variables as the ones with minimum deterministic query complexity $(D(f))$. We observe that for each $n$, there exists a non-separable class of QF functions such that $D(f)=Q_E(f)$. Further, we show that for some values of $n$, all the QF functions are non-separable. Then we present QF functions for certain other values of $n$ where separation can be demonstrated, in particular, $Q_E(f)=D(f)-1$. In a related effort, we also study the Maiorana McFarland (M-M) type Bent functions. We show that while for any M-M Bent function $f$ on $n$ variables $D(f) = n$, separation can be achieved as $\frac{n}{2} \leq Q_E(f) \leq \lceil \frac{3n}{4} \rceil$. Our results highlight how different classes of Boolean functions can be analyzed for classical-quantum separation exploiting the parity decision tree method.
We give an exponential separation between one-way quantum and classical communication complexity for a Boolean function. Earlier such a separation was known only for a relation. A very similar result was obtained earlier but independently by Kerenidis and Raz [KR06]. Our version of the result gives an example in the bounded storage model of cryptography, where the key is secure if the adversary has a certain amount of classical storage, but is completely insecure if he has a similar amount of quantum storage.
We construct a total Boolean function $f$ satisfying $R(f)=\tildeΩ(Q(f)^{5/2})$, refuting the long-standing conjecture that $R(f)=O(Q(f)^2)$ for all total Boolean functions. Assuming a conjecture of Aaronson and Ambainis about optimal quantum speedups for partial functions, we improve this to $R(f)=\tildeΩ(Q(f)^3)$. Our construction is motivated by the Göös-Pitassi-Watson function but does not use it.
In this work we revisit the Boolean Hidden Matching communication problem, which was the first communication problem in the one-way model to demonstrate an exponential classical-quantum communication separation. In this problem, Alice's bits are matched into pairs according to a partition that Bob holds. These pairs are compressed using a Parity function and it is promised that the final bit-string is equal either to another bit-string Bob holds, or its complement. The problem is to decide which case is the correct one. Here we generalize the Boolean Hidden Matching problem by replacing the pa…
The query model offers a concrete setting where quantum algorithms are provably superior to randomized algorithms. Beautiful results by Bernstein-Vazirani, Simon, Aaronson, and others presented partial Boolean functions that can be computed by quantum algorithms making much fewer queries compared to their randomized analogs. To date, separations of $O(1)$ vs. $\sqrt{N}$ between quantum and randomized query complexities remain the state-of-the-art (where $N$ is the input length), leaving open the question of whether $O(1)$ vs. $N^{1/2+Ω(1)}$ separations are possible? We answer this question in …
Attempts to separate the power of classical and quantum models of computation have a long history. The ultimate goal is to find exponential separations for computational problems. However, such separations do not come a dime a dozen: while there were some early successes in the form of hidden subgroup problems for abelian groups--which generalize Shor's factoring algorithm perhaps most faithfully--only for a handful of non-abelian groups efficient quantum algorithms were found. Recently, problems have gotten increased attention that seek to identify hidden sub-structures of other combinatorial…
We give a tight lower bound of Omega(\sqrt{n}) for the randomized one-way communication complexity of the Boolean Hidden Matching Problem [BJK04]. Since there is a quantum one-way communication complexity protocol of O(\log n) qubits for this problem, we obtain an exponential separation of quantum and classical one-way communication complexity for partial functions. A similar result was independently obtained by Gavinsky, Kempe, de Wolf [GKdW06]. Our lower bound is obtained by Fourier analysis, using the Fourier coefficients inequality of Kahn Kalai and Linial [KKL88].
The hidden shift problem is a natural place to look for new separations between classical and quantum models of computation. One advantage of this problem is its flexibility, since it can be defined for a whole range of functions and a whole range of underlying groups. In a way, this distinguishes it from the hidden subgroup problem where more stringent requirements about the existence of a periodic subgroup have to be made. And yet, the hidden shift problem proves to be rich enough to capture interesting features of problems of algebraic, geometric, and combinatorial flavor. We present a quan…
We provide new query complexity separations against sensitivity for total Boolean functions: a power $3$ separation between deterministic (and even randomized or quantum) query complexity and sensitivity, and a power $2.22$ separation between certificate complexity and sensitivity. We get these separations by using a new connection between sensitivity and a seemingly unrelated measure called one-sided unambiguous certificate complexity ($UC_{min}$). We also show that $UC_{min}$ is lower-bounded by fractional block sensitivity, which means we cannot use these techniques to get a super-quadratic…
In 1986, Saks and Wigderson conjectured that the largest separation between deterministic and zero-error randomized query complexity for a total boolean function is given by the function $f$ on $n=2^k$ bits defined by a complete binary tree of NAND gates of depth $k$, which achieves $R_0(f) = O(D(f)^{0.7537\ldots})$. We show this is false by giving an example of a total boolean function $f$ on $n$ bits whose deterministic query complexity is $Ω(n/\log(n))$ while its zero-error randomized query complexity is $\tilde O(\sqrt{n})$. We further show that the quantum query complexity of the same fun…
We study the query complexity of Weak Parity: the problem of computing the parity of an n-bit input string, where one only has to succeed on a 1/2+eps fraction of input strings, but must do so with high probability on those inputs where one does succeed. It is well-known that n randomized queries and n/2 quantum queries are needed to compute parity on all inputs. But surprisingly, we give a randomized algorithm for Weak Parity that makes only O(n/log^0.246(1/eps)) queries, as well as a quantum algorithm that makes only O(n/sqrt(log(1/eps))) queries. We also prove a lower bound of Omega(n/log(1…
Generalizing a boolean function from Cleve and Buhrman \cite{cb:sqec}, we consider the class of {\it accumulative boolean functions} of the form $f_B(X_1,X_2,..., X_m)=\bigoplus_{i=1}^n t_B(x_i^1x_i^2... x_i^m)$, where $X_j=(x^j_1,x^j_2,..., x^j_n), 1\leq j\leq m$ and $t_B(x_i^1x_i^2... x_i^m)=1$ for input $m$-tuples $x_i^1x_i^2...x_i^m\in B\subseteq A\subseteq \{0,1\}^n$, and 0, if $x_i^1x_i^2...x_i^m\in A\setminus B$. Here the set $A$ is the input {\it promise} set for function $f_B$. The input vectors $X_j, 1\leq j\leq m$ are given to the $m\geq 3$ parties respectively, who communicate cbit…
In Exact Quantum Query model, almost all of the Boolean functions for which non-trivial query algorithms exist are symmetric in nature. The most well known techniques in this domain exploit parity decision trees, in which the parity of two bits can be obtained by a single query. Thus, exact quantum query algorithms outperforming parity decision trees are rare. In this paper we first obtain optimal exact quantum query algorithms ($Q_{algo}(f)$) for a direct sum based class of $Ω\left( 2^{\frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}} \right)$ non-symmetric functions. We construct these algorithms by analyzing the algebra…
We present a new example of a partial boolean function whose one-way quantum communication complexity is exponentially lower than its one-way classical communication complexity. The problem is a natural generalisation of the previously studied Subgroup Membership problem: Alice receives a bit string x, Bob receives a permutation matrix M, and their task is to determine whether Mx=x or Mx is far from x. The proof uses Fourier analysis and an inequality of Kahn, Kalai and Linial.
We give an exponential separation between one-way quantum and classical communication protocols for a partial Boolean function (a variant of the Boolean Hidden Matching Problem of Bar-Yossef et al.) Earlier such an exponential separation was known only for a relational problem. The communication problem corresponds to a \emph{strong extractor} that fails against a small amount of \emph{quantum} information about its random source. Our proof uses the Fourier coefficients inequality of Kahn, Kalai, and Linial. We also give a number of applications of this separation. In particular, we show that …
We show that the quantum parity gate on $n > 3$ qubits cannot be cleanly simulated by a quantum circuit with two layers of arbitrary C-SIGN gates of any arity and arbitrary 1-qubit unitary gates, regardless of the number of allowed ancilla qubits. This is the best known and first nontrivial separation between the parity gate and circuits of this form. The same bounds also apply to the quantum fanout gate. Our results are incomparable with those of Fang et al. [3], which apply to any constant depth but require a sublinear number of ancilla qubits on the simulating circuit.
We achieve essentially the largest possible separation between quantum and classical query complexities. We do so using a property-testing problem called Forrelation, where one needs to decide whether one Boolean function is highly correlated with the Fourier transform of a second function. This problem can be solved using 1 quantum query, yet we show that any randomized algorithm needs ~sqrt(N)/log(N) queries (improving an ~N^{1/4} lower bound of Aaronson). Conversely, we show that this 1 versus ~sqrt(N) separation is optimal: indeed, any t-query quantum algorithm whatsoever can be simulated …
Given a prior probability distribution over a set of possible oracle functions, we define a number of queries to be useless for determining some property of the function if the probability that the function has the property is unchanged after the oracle responds to the queries. A familiar example is the parity of a uniformly random Boolean-valued function over $\{1,2,...,N\}$, for which $N-1$ classical queries are useless. We prove that if $2k$ classical queries are useless for some oracle problem, then $k$ quantum queries are also useless. For such problems, which include classical threshold …
A quantum algorithm is exact if, on any input data, it outputs the correct answer with certainty (probability 1). A key question is: how big is the advantage of exact quantum algorithms over their classical counterparts: deterministic algorithms. For total Boolean functions in the query model, the biggest known gap was just a factor of 2: PARITY of N inputs bits requires $N$ queries classically but can be computed with N/2 queries by an exact quantum algorithm. We present the first example of a Boolean function f(x_1, ..., x_N) for which exact quantum algorithms have superlinear advantage over…
Chattopadhyay, Mande and Sherif (ECCC 2018) recently exhibited a total Boolean function, the sink function, that has polynomial approximate rank and polynomial randomized communication complexity. This gives an exponential separation between randomized communication complexity and logarithm of the approximate rank, refuting the log-approximate-rank conjecture. We show that even the quantum communication complexity of the sink function is polynomial, thus also refuting the quantum log-approximate-rank conjecture. Our lower bound is based on the fooling distribution method introduced by Rao and …
We show a power 2.5 separation between bounded-error randomized and quantum query complexity for a total Boolean function, refuting the widely believed conjecture that the best such separation could only be quadratic (from Grover's algorithm). We also present a total function with a power 4 separation between quantum query complexity and approximate polynomial degree, showing severe limitations on the power of the polynomial method. Finally, we exhibit a total function with a quadratic gap between quantum query complexity and certificate complexity, which is optimal (up to log factors). These …
The Forrelation problem, introduced by Aaronson [A10] and Aaronson and Ambainis [AA15], is a well studied problem in the context of separating quantum and classical models. Variants of this problem were used to give exponential separations between quantum and classical query complexity [A10, AA15]; quantum query complexity and bounded-depth circuits [RT19]; and quantum and classical communication complexity [GRT19]. In all these separations, the lower bound for the classical model only holds when the advantage of the protocol (over a random guess) is more than $\approx 1/\sqrt{N}$, that is, th…
We define and study the complexity of robust polynomials for Boolean functions and the related fault-tolerant quantum decision trees, where input bits are perturbed by noise. We compare several different possible definitions. Our main results are * For every n-bit Boolean function f there is an n-variate polynomial p of degree O(n) that robustly approximates it, in the sense that p(x) remains close to f(x) if we slightly vary each of the n inputs of the polynomial. * There is an O(n)-query quantum algorithm that robustly recovers n noisy input bits. Hence every n-bit function can be quantum co…
Characterizing Quantum Advantage for Generalizations of the Boolean Hidden Matching Problem
Boston University（波士顿大学）；HUN-REN Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics（匈牙利研究网络阿尔弗雷德·雷尼数学研究所）；National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学）；IRIF (CNRS & Université Paris Cité)（IRIF（法国国家科学研究中心与巴黎西岱大学））
We give a new upper bound on the quantum query complexity of deciding $st$-connectivity on certain classes of planar graphs, and show the bound is sometimes exponentially better than previous results. We then show Boolean formula evaluation reduces to deciding connectivity on just such a class of graphs. Applying the algorithm for $st$-connectivity to Boolean formula evaluation problems, we match the $O(\sqrt{N})$ bound on the quantum query complexity of evaluating formulas on $N$ variables, give a quadratic speed-up over the classical query complexity of a certain class of promise Boolean for…
This work studies the quantum query complexity of Boolean functions in a scenario where it is only required that the query algorithm succeeds with a probability strictly greater than 1/2. We show that, just as in the communication complexity model, the unbounded error quantum query complexity is exactly half of its classical counterpart for any (partial or total) Boolean function. Moreover, we show that the "black-box" approach to convert quantum query algorithms into communication protocols by Buhrman-Cleve-Wigderson [STOC'98] is optimal even in the unbounded error setting. We also study a se…
