54 research outputs found
On Perfect Completeness for QMA
Whether the class QMA (Quantum Merlin Arthur) is equal to QMA1, or QMA with
one-sided error, has been an open problem for years. This note helps to explain
why the problem is difficult, by using ideas from real analysis to give a
"quantum oracle" relative to which they are different. As a byproduct, we find
that there are facts about quantum complexity classes that are classically
relativizing but not quantumly relativizing, among them such "trivial"
containments as BQP in ZQEXP.Comment: 9 pages. To appear in Quantum Information & Computatio
Two Results about Quantum Messages
We show two results about the relationship between quantum and classical
messages. Our first contribution is to show how to replace a quantum message in
a one-way communication protocol by a deterministic message, establishing that
for all partial Boolean functions we
have . This bound was previously
known for total functions, while for partial functions this improves on results
by Aaronson, in which either a log-factor on the right hand is present, or the
left hand side is , and in which also no entanglement is
allowed.
In our second contribution we investigate the power of quantum proofs over
classical proofs. We give the first example of a scenario, where quantum proofs
lead to exponential savings in computing a Boolean function. The previously
only known separation between the power of quantum and classical proofs is in a
setting where the input is also quantum.
We exhibit a partial Boolean function , such that there is a one-way
quantum communication protocol receiving a quantum proof (i.e., a protocol of
type QMA) that has cost for , whereas every one-way quantum
protocol for receiving a classical proof (protocol of type QCMA) requires
communication
The Importance of the Spectral Gap in Estimating Ground-State Energies
The field of quantum Hamiltonian complexity lies at the intersection of quantum many-body physics and computational complexity theory, with deep implications to both fields. The main object of study is the Local Hamiltonian problem, which is concerned with estimating the ground-state energy of a local Hamiltonian and is complete for the class QMA, a quantum generalization of the class NP. A major challenge in the field is to understand the complexity of the Local Hamiltonian problem in more physically natural parameter regimes. One crucial parameter in understanding the ground space of any Hamiltonian in many-body physics is the spectral gap, which is the difference between the smallest two eigenvalues. Despite its importance in quantum many-body physics, the role played by the spectral gap in the complexity of the Local Hamiltonian problem is less well-understood. In this work, we make progress on this question by considering the precise regime, in which one estimates the ground-state energy to within inverse exponential precision. Computing ground-state energies precisely is a task that is important for quantum chemistry and quantum many-body physics.
In the setting of inverse-exponential precision (promise gap), there is a surprising result that the complexity of Local Hamiltonian is magnified from QMA to PSPACE, the class of problems solvable in polynomial space (but possibly exponential time). We clarify the reason behind this boost in complexity. Specifically, we show that the full complexity of the high precision case only comes about when the spectral gap is exponentially small. As a consequence of the proof techniques developed to show our results, we uncover important implications for the representability and circuit complexity of ground states of local Hamiltonians, the theory of uniqueness of quantum witnesses, and techniques for the amplification of quantum witnesses in the presence of postselection
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