Lower Bounds for Quantum Search and Derandomization

We prove lower bounds on the error probability of a quantum algorithm for searching through an unordered list of N items, as a function of the number T of queries it makes. In particular, if T=O(sqrt{N}) then the error is lower bounded by a constant. If we want error <1/2^N then we need T=Omega(N) queries. We apply this to show that a quantum computer cannot do much better than a classical computer when amplifying the success probability of an RP-machine. A classical computer can achieve error <=1/2^k using k applications of the RP-machine, a quantum computer still needs at least ck applications for this (when treating the machine as a black-box), where c>0 is a constant independent of k. Furthermore, we prove a lower bound of Omega(sqrt{log N}/loglog N) queries for quantum bounded-error search of an ordered list of N items.Comment: 12 pages LaTeX. Submitted to CCC'99 (formerly Structures

Tensor Norms and the Classical Communication Complexity of Nonlocal Quantum Measurement

We initiate the study of quantifying nonlocalness of a bipartite measurement by the minimum amount of classical communication required to simulate the measurement. We derive general upper bounds, which are expressed in terms of certain tensor norms of the measurement operator. As applications, we show that (a) If the amount of communication is constant, quantum and classical communication protocols with unlimited amount of shared entanglement or shared randomness compute the same set of functions; (b) A local hidden variable model needs only a constant amount of communication to create, within an arbitrarily small statistical distance, a distribution resulted from local measurements of an entangled quantum state, as long as the number of measurement outcomes is constant.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper appears as part of an article in Proceedings of the the 37th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2005), 460--467, 200

Communication Complexity Lower Bounds by Polynomials

The quantum version of communication complexity allows the two communicating parties to exchange qubits and/or to make use of prior entanglement (shared EPR-pairs). Some lower bound techniques are available for qubit communication complexity, but except for the inner product function, no bounds are known for the model with unlimited prior entanglement. We show that the log-rank lower bound extends to the strongest model (qubit communication + unlimited prior entanglement). By relating the rank of the communication matrix to properties of polynomials, we are able to derive some strong bounds for exact protocols. In particular, we prove both the "log-rank conjecture" and the polynomial equivalence of quantum and classical communication complexity for various classes of functions. We also derive some weaker bounds for bounded-error quantum protocols.Comment: 16 pages LaTeX, no figures. 2nd version: rewritten and some results adde