Quantum vs. Classical Read-once Branching Programs

The paper presents the first nontrivial upper and lower bounds for (non-oblivious) quantum read-once branching programs. It is shown that the computational power of quantum and classical read-once branching programs is incomparable in the following sense: (i) A simple, explicit boolean function on 2n input bits is presented that is computable by error-free quantum read-once branching programs of size O(n^3), while each classical randomized read-once branching program and each quantum OBDD for this function with bounded two-sided error requires size 2^{\Omega(n)}. (ii) Quantum branching programs reading each input variable exactly once are shown to require size 2^{\Omega(n)} for computing the set-disjointness function DISJ_n from communication complexity theory with two-sided error bounded by a constant smaller than 1/2-2\sqrt{3}/7. This function is trivially computable even by deterministic OBDDs of linear size. The technically most involved part is the proof of the lower bound in (ii). For this, a new model of quantum multi-partition communication protocols is introduced and a suitable extension of the information cost technique of Jain, Radhakrishnan, and Sen (2003) to this model is presented.Comment: 35 pages. Lower bound for disjointness: Error in application of info theory corrected and regularity of quantum read-once BPs (each variable at least once) added as additional assumption of the theorem. Some more informal explanations adde

Quantum Branching Programs and Space-Bounded Nonuniform Quantum Complexity

In this paper, the space complexity of nonuniform quantum computations is investigated. The model chosen for this are quantum branching programs, which provide a graphic description of sequential quantum algorithms. In the first part of the paper, simulations between quantum branching programs and nonuniform quantum Turing machines are presented which allow to transfer lower and upper bound results between the two models. In the second part of the paper, different variants of quantum OBDDs are compared with their deterministic and randomized counterparts. In the third part, quantum branching programs are considered where the performed unitary operation may depend on the result of a previous measurement. For this model a simulation of randomized OBDDs and exponential lower bounds are presented.Comment: 45 pages, 3 Postscript figures. Proofs rearranged, typos correcte

Computation with narrow CTCs

We examine some variants of computation with closed timelike curves (CTCs), where various restrictions are imposed on the memory of the computer, and the information carrying capacity and range of the CTC. We give full characterizations of the classes of languages recognized by polynomial time probabilistic and quantum computers that can send a single classical bit to their own past. Such narrow CTCs are demonstrated to add the power of limited nondeterminism to deterministic computers, and lead to exponential speedup in constant-space probabilistic and quantum computation. We show that, given a time machine with constant negative delay, one can implement CTC-based computations without the need to know about the runtime beforehand.Comment: 16 pages. A few typo was correcte