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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 computed with O(n) queries in the presence of noise. This contrasts with the classical model of Feige et al., where functions such as parity need Theta(n*log n) queries. We give several extensions and applications of these results.
We give new quantum algorithms for evaluating composed functions whose inputs may be shared between bottom-level gates. Let $f$ be an $m$-bit Boolean function and consider an $n$-bit function $F$ obtained by applying $f$ to conjunctions of possibly overlapping subsets of $n$ variables. If $f$ has quantum query complexity $Q(f)$, we give an algorithm for evaluating $F$ using $tilde{O}(sqrt{Q(f) cdot n})$ quantum queries. This improves on the bound of $O(Q(f) cdot sqrt{n})$ that follows by treating each conjunction independently, and our bound is tight for worst-case choices of $f$. Using completely different techniques, we prove a similar tight composition theorem for the approximate degree of $f$. By recursively applying our composition theorems, we obtain a nearly optimal $tilde{O}(n^{1-2^{-d}})$ upper bound on the quantum query complexity and approximate degree of linear-size depth-$d$ AC$^0$ circuits. As a consequence, such circuits can be PAC learned in subexponential time, even in the challenging agnostic setting. Prior to our work, a subexponential-time algorithm was not known even for linear-size depth-3 AC$^0$ circuits. As an additional consequence, we show that AC$^0 circ oplus$ circuits of depth $d+1$ require size $tilde{Omega}(n^{1/(1- 2^{-d})}) geq omega(n^{1+ 2^{-d}} )$ to compute the Inner Product function even on average. The previous best size lower bound was $Omega(n^{1+4^{-(d+1)}})$ and only held in the worst case (Cheraghchi et al., JCSS 2018).
We examine the number T of queries that a quantum network requires to compute several Boolean functions on {0,1}^N in the black-box model. We show that, in the black-box model, the exponential quantum speed-up obtained for partial functions (i.e. problems involving a promise on the input) by Deutsch and Jozsa and by Simon cannot be obtained for any total function: if a quantum algorithm computes some total Boolean function f with bounded-error using T black-box queries then there is a classical deterministic algorithm that computes f exactly with O(T^6) queries. We also give asymptotically tight characterizations of T for all symmetric f in the exact, zero-error, and bounded-error settings. Finally, we give new precise bounds for AND, OR, and PARITY. Our results are a quantum extension of the so-called polynomial method, which has been successfully applied in classical complexity theory, and also a quantum extension of results by Nisan about a polynomial relationship between randomized and deterministic decision tree complexity.
We study the close connection between rational functions that approximate a given Boolean function, and quantum algorithms that compute the same function using postselection. We show that the minimal degree of the former equals (up to a factor of 2) the minimal query complexity of the latter. We give optimal (up to constant factors) quantum algorithms with postselection for the Majority function, slightly improving upon an earlier algorithm of Aaronson. Finally we show how Newmans classic theorem about low-degree rational approximation of the absolute-value function follows from these algorithms.
Matrix scaling and matrix balancing are two basic linear-algebraic problems with a wide variety of applications, such as approximating the permanent, and pre-conditioning linear systems to make them more numerically stable. We study the power and limitations of quantum algorithms for these problems. We provide quantum implementations of two classical (in both senses of the word) methods: Sinkhorns algorithm for matrix scaling and Osbornes algorithm for matrix balancing. Using amplitude estimation as our main tool, our quantum implementations both run in time $tilde O(sqrt{mn}/varepsilon^4)$ for scaling or balancing an $n times n$ matrix (given by an oracle) with $m$ non-zero entries to within $ell_1$-error $varepsilon$. Their classical analogs use time $tilde O(m/varepsilon^2)$, and every classical algorithm for scaling or balancing with small constant $varepsilon$ requires $Omega(m)$ queries to the entries of the input matrix. We thus achieve a polynomial speed-up in terms of $n$, at the expense of a worse polynomial dependence on the obtained $ell_1$-error $varepsilon$. We emphasize that even for constant $varepsilon$ these problems are already non-trivial (and relevant in applications). Along the way, we extend the classical analysis of Sinkhorns and Osbornes algorithm to allow for errors in the computation of marginals. We also adapt an improved analysis of Sinkhorns algorithm for entrywise-positive matrices to the $ell_1$-setting, leading to an $tilde O(n^{1.5}/varepsilon^3)$-time quantum algorithm for $varepsilon$-$ell_1$-scaling in this case. We also prove a lower bound, showing that our quantum algorithm for matrix scaling is essentially optimal for constant $varepsilon$: every quantum algorithm for matrix scaling that achieves a constant $ell_1$-error with respect to uniform marginals needs to make at least $Omega(sqrt{mn})$ queries.
We study the complexity of quantum query algorithms that make p queries in parallel in each timestep. This model is in part motivated by the fact that decoherence times of qubits are typically small, so it makes sense to parallelize quantum algorithms as much as possible. We show tight bounds for a number of problems, specifically Theta((n/p)^{2/3}) p-parallel queries for element distinctness and Theta((n/p)^{k/(k+1)} for k-sum. Our upper bounds are obtained by parallelized quantum walk algorithms, and our lower bounds are based on a relatively small modification of the adversary lower bound method, combined with recent results of Belovs et al. on learning graphs. We also prove some general bounds, in particular that quantum and classical p-parallel complexity are polynomially related for all total functions f when p is small compared to fs block sensitivity.