New results on classical and quantum counter automata

We show that one-way quantum one-counter automaton with zero-error is more powerful than its probabilistic counterpart on promise problems. Then, we obtain a similar separation result between Las Vegas one-way probabilistic one-counter automaton and one-way deterministic one-counter automaton. We also obtain new results on classical counter automata regarding language recognition. It was conjectured that one-way probabilistic one blind-counter automata cannot recognize Kleene closure of equality language [A. Yakaryilmaz: Superiority of one-way and realtime quantum machines. RAIRO - Theor. Inf. and Applic. 46(4): 615-641 (2012)]. We show that this conjecture is false, and also show several separation results for blind/non-blind counter automata.Comment: 21 page

Implications of quantum automata for contextuality

We construct zero-error quantum finite automata (QFAs) for promise problems which cannot be solved by bounded-error probabilistic finite automata (PFAs). Here is a summary of our results: - There is a promise problem solvable by an exact two-way QFA in exponential expected time, but not by any bounded-error sublogarithmic space probabilistic Turing machine (PTM). - There is a promise problem solvable by an exact two-way QFA in quadratic expected time, but not by any bounded-error $o(\log \log n)$-space PTMs in polynomial expected time. The same problem can be solvable by a one-way Las Vegas (or exact two-way) QFA with quantum head in linear (expected) time. - There is a promise problem solvable by a Las Vegas realtime QFA, but not by any bounded-error realtime PFA. The same problem can be solvable by an exact two-way QFA in linear expected time but not by any exact two-way PFA. - There is a family of promise problems such that each promise problem can be solvable by a two-state exact realtime QFAs, but, there is no such bound on the number of states of realtime bounded-error PFAs solving the members this family. Our results imply that there exist zero-error quantum computational devices with a \emph{single qubit} of memory that cannot be simulated by any finite memory classical computational model. This provides a computational perspective on results regarding ontological theories of quantum mechanics \cite{Hardy04}, \cite{Montina08}. As a consequence we find that classical automata based simulation models \cite{Kleinmann11}, \cite{Blasiak13} are not sufficiently powerful to simulate quantum contextuality. We conclude by highlighting the interplay between results from automata models and their application to developing a general framework for quantum contextuality.Comment: 22 page

On the state complexity of semi-quantum finite automata

Some of the most interesting and important results concerning quantum finite automata are those showing that they can recognize certain languages with (much) less resources than corresponding classical finite automata \cite{Amb98,Amb09,AmYa11,Ber05,Fre09,Mer00,Mer01,Mer02,Yak10,ZhgQiu112,Zhg12}. This paper shows three results of such a type that are stronger in some sense than other ones because (a) they deal with models of quantum automata with very little quantumness (so-called semi-quantum one- and two-way automata with one qubit memory only); (b) differences, even comparing with probabilistic classical automata, are bigger than expected; (c) a trade-off between the number of classical and quantum basis states needed is demonstrated in one case and (d) languages (or the promise problem) used to show main results are very simple and often explored ones in automata theory or in communication complexity, with seemingly little structure that could be utilized.Comment: 19 pages. We improve (make stronger) the results in section

Potential of quantum finite automata with exact acceptance

The potential of the exact quantum information processing is an interesting, important and intriguing issue. For examples, it has been believed that quantum tools can provide significant, that is larger than polynomial, advantages in the case of exact quantum computation only, or mainly, for problems with very special structures. We will show that this is not the case. In this paper the potential of quantum finite automata producing outcomes not only with a (high) probability, but with certainty (so called exactly) is explored in the context of their uses for solving promise problems and with respect to the size of automata. It is shown that for solving particular classes $\{A^n\}_{n=1}^{\infty}$ of promise problems, even those without some very special structure, that succinctness of the exact quantum finite automata under consideration, with respect to the number of (basis) states, can be very small (and constant) though it grows proportional to $n$ in the case deterministic finite automata (DFAs) of the same power are used. This is here demonstrated also for the case that the component languages of the promise problems solvable by DFAs are non-regular. The method used can be applied in finding more exact quantum finite automata or quantum algorithms for other promise problems.Comment: We have improved the presentation of the paper. Accepted to International Journal of Foundation of Computer Scienc

From Quantum Query Complexity to State Complexity

State complexity of quantum finite automata is one of the interesting topics in studying the power of quantum finite automata. It is therefore of importance to develop general methods how to show state succinctness results for quantum finite automata. One such method is presented and demonstrated in this paper. In particular, we show that state succinctness results can be derived out of query complexity results.Comment: Some typos in references were fixed. To appear in Gruska Festschrift (2014). Comments are welcome. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1402.7254, arXiv:1309.773