Nikhil S. Mande

Nikhil S. Mande, Ronald de Wolf

Phase estimation, due to Kitaev [arXiv'95], is one of the most fundamental subroutines in quantum computing. In the basic scenario, one is given black-box access to a unitary $U$, and an eigenstate $\lvert ψ\rangle$ of $U$ with unknown eigenvalue $e^{iθ}$, and the task is to estimate the eigenphase $θ$ within $\pmδ$, with high probability. The cost of an algorithm for us is the number of applications of $U$ and $U^{-1}$. We tightly characterize the cost of several variants of phase estimation where we are no longer given an eigenstate, but are required to estimate the maximum eigenphase of $U$, aided by advice in the form of states (or a unitary preparing those states) which are promised to have at least a certain overlap $γ$ with the top eigenspace. We give algorithms and nearly matching lower bounds for all ranges of parameters. We show that a small number of copies of the advice state (or of an advice-preparing unitary) are not significantly better than having no advice at all. We also show that having lots of advice (applications of the advice-preparing unitary) does not significantly reduce cost, and neither does knowledge of the eigenbasis of $U$. We immediately obtain a lower bound on the complexity of the Unitary recurrence time problem, resolving an open question of She and Yuen~[ITCS'23]. Lastly, we study how efficiently one can reduce the error probability in the basic phase-estimation scenario. We show that a phase-estimation algorithm with precision $δ$ and error probability $ε$ has cost $Ω\left(\frac{1}δ\log\frac{1}ε\right)$, matching an easy upper bound. This contrasts with some other scenarios in quantum computing (e.g., search) where error-probability reduction costs only a factor $O(\sqrt{\log(1/ε)})$. Our lower bound uses a variant of the polynomial method with trigonometric polynomials.

Alison Hsiang-Hsuan Liu, Nikhil S. Mande

In the area of query complexity of Boolean functions, the most widely studied cost measure of an algorithm is the worst-case number of queries made by it on an input. Motivated by the most natural cost measure studied in online algorithms, the competitive ratio, we consider a different cost measure for query algorithms for Boolean functions that captures the ratio of the cost of the algorithm and the cost of an optimal algorithm that knows the input in advance. The cost of an algorithm is its largest cost over all inputs. Grossman, Komargodski and Naor [ITCS'20] introduced this measure for Boolean functions, and dubbed it instance complexity. Grossman et al. showed, among other results, that monotone Boolean functions with instance complexity 1 are precisely those that depend on one or two variables. We complement the above-mentioned result of Grossman et al. by completely characterizing the instance complexity of symmetric Boolean functions. As a corollary we conclude that the only symmetric Boolean functions with instance complexity 1 are the Parity function and its complement. We also study the instance complexity of some graph properties like Connectivity and k-clique containment. In all the Boolean functions we study above, and those studied by Grossman et al., the instance complexity turns out to be the ratio of query complexity to minimum certificate complexity. It is a natural question to ask if this is the correct bound for all Boolean functions. We show a negative answer in a very strong sense, by analyzing the instance complexity of the Greater-Than and Odd-Max-Bit functions. We show that the above-mentioned ratio is linear in the input size for both of these functions, while we exhibit algorithms for which the instance complexity is a constant.