No Arabic abstract
We study the composition question for bounded-error randomized query complexity: Is R(f o g) = Omega(R(f) R(g)) for all Boolean functions f and g? We show that inserting a simple Boolean function h, whose query complexity is only Theta(log R(g)), in between f and g allows us to prove R(f o h o g) = Omega(R(f) R(h) R(g)). We prove this using a new lower bound measure for randomized query complexity we call randomized sabotage complexity, RS(f). Randomized sabotage complexity has several desirable properties, such as a perfect composition theorem, RS(f o g) >= RS(f) RS(g), and a composition theorem with randomized query complexity, R(f o g) = Omega(R(f) RS(g)). It is also a quadratically tight lower bound for total functions and can be quadratically superior to the partition bound, the best known general lower bound for randomized query complexity. Using this technique we also show implications for lifting theorems in communication complexity. We show that a general lifting theorem for zero-error randomized protocols implies a general lifting theorem for bounded-error protocols.
We prove two new results about the randomized query complexity of composed functions. First, we show that the randomized composition conjecture is false: there are families of partial Boolean functions $f$ and $g$ such that $R(fcirc g)ll R(f) R(g)$. In fact, we show that the left hand side can be polynomially smaller than the right hand side (though in our construction, both sides are polylogarithmic in the input size of $f$). Second, we show that for all $f$ and $g$, $R(fcirc g)=Omega(mathop{noisyR}(f)cdot R(g))$, where $mathop{noisyR}(f)$ is a measure describing the cost of computing $f$ on noisy oracle inputs. We show that this composition theorem is the strongest possible of its type: for any measure $M(cdot)$ satisfying $R(fcirc g)=Omega(M(f)R(g))$ for all $f$ and $g$, it must hold that $mathop{noisyR}(f)=Omega(M(f))$ for all $f$. We also give a clean characterization of the measure $mathop{noisyR}(f)$: it satisfies $mathop{noisyR}(f)=Theta(R(fcirc gapmaj_n)/R(gapmaj_n))$, where $n$ is the input size of $f$ and $gapmaj_n$ is the $sqrt{n}$-gap majority function on $n$ bits.
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 $R_0(f) = O(D(f)^{0.7537ldots})$. We show this is false by giving an example of a total boolean function $f$ on $n$ bits whose deterministic query complexity is $Omega(n/log(n))$ while its zero-error randomized query complexity is $tilde O(sqrt{n})$. We further show that the quantum query complexity of the same function is $tilde O(n^{1/4})$, giving the first example of a total function with a super-quadratic gap between its quantum and deterministic query complexities. We also construct a total boolean function $g$ on $n$ variables that has zero-error randomized query complexity $Omega(n/log(n))$ and bounded-error randomized query complexity $R(g) = tilde O(sqrt{n})$. This is the first super-linear separation between these two complexity measures. The exact quantum query complexity of the same function is $Q_E(g) = tilde O(sqrt{n})$. These two functions show that the relations $D(f) = O(R_1(f)^2)$ and $R_0(f) = tilde O(R(f)^2)$ are optimal, up to poly-logarithmic factors. Further variations of these functions give additional separations between other query complexity measures: a cubic separation between $Q$ and $R_0$, a $3/2$-power separation between $Q_E$ and $R$, and a 4th power separation between approximate degree and bounded-error randomized query complexity. All of these examples are variants of a function recently introduced by goos, Pitassi, and Watson which they used to separate the unambiguous 1-certificate complexity from deterministic query complexity and to resolve the famous Clique versus Independent Set problem in communication complexity.
Let $f:{0,1}^n rightarrow {0,1}$ be a Boolean function. The certificate complexity $C(f)$ is a complexity measure that is quadratically tight for the zero-error randomized query complexity $R_0(f)$: $C(f) leq R_0(f) leq C(f)^2$. In this paper we study a new complexity measure that we call expectational certificate complexity $EC(f)$, which is also a quadratically tight bound on $R_0(f)$: $EC(f) leq R_0(f) = O(EC(f)^2)$. We prove that $EC(f) leq C(f) leq EC(f)^2$ and show that there is a quadratic separation between the two, thus $EC(f)$ gives a tighter upper bound for $R_0(f)$. The measure is also related to the fractional certificate complexity $FC(f)$ as follows: $FC(f) leq EC(f) = O(FC(f)^{3/2})$. This also connects to an open question by Aaronson whether $FC(f)$ is a quadratically tight bound for $R_0(f)$, as $EC(f)$ is in fact a relaxation of $FC(f)$. In the second part of the work, we upper bound the distributed query complexity $D^mu_epsilon(f)$ for product distributions $mu$ by the square of the query corruption bound ($mathrm{corr}_epsilon(f)$) which improves upon a result of Harsha, Jain and Radhakrishnan [2015]. A similar statement for communication complexity is open.
Let the randomized query complexity of a relation for error probability $epsilon$ be denoted by $R_epsilon(cdot)$. We prove that for any relation $f subseteq {0,1}^n times mathcal{R}$ and Boolean function $g:{0,1}^m rightarrow {0,1}$, $R_{1/3}(fcirc g^n) = Omega(R_{4/9}(f)cdot R_{1/2-1/n^4}(g))$, where $f circ g^n$ is the relation obtained by composing $f$ and $g$. We also show that $R_{1/3}left(f circ left(g^oplus_{O(log n)}right)^nright)=Omega(log n cdot R_{4/9}(f) cdot R_{1/3}(g))$, where $g^oplus_{O(log n)}$ is the function obtained by composing the xor function on $O(log n)$ bits and $g^t$.
We show that there exists a Boolean function $F$ which observes the following separations among deterministic query complexity $(D(F))$, randomized zero error query complexity $(R_0(F))$ and randomized one-sided error query complexity $(R_1(F))$: $R_1(F) = widetilde{O}(sqrt{D(F)})$ and $R_0(F)=widetilde{O}(D(F))^{3/4}$. This refutes the conjecture made by Saks and Wigderson that for any Boolean function $f$, $R_0(f)=Omega({D(f)})^{0.753..}$. This also shows widest separation between $R_1(f)$ and $D(f)$ for any Boolean function. The function $F$ was defined by G{{o}}{{o}}s, Pitassi and Watson who studied it for showing a separation between deterministic decision tree complexity and unambiguous non-deterministic decision tree complexity. Independently of us, Ambainis et al proved that different variants of the function $F$ certify optimal (quadratic) separation between $D(f)$ and $R_0(f)$, and polynomial separation between $R_0(f)$ and $R_1(f)$. Viewed as separation results, our results are subsumed by those of Ambainis et al. However, while the functions considerd in the work of Ambainis et al are different variants of $F$, we work with the original function $F$ itself.