We study a new type of separations between quantum and classical communication complexity, separations that are obtained using quantum protocols where all parties are efficient , in the sense that they can be implemented by small quantum circuits, with oracle access to their inputs. Our main result qualitatively matches the strongest known separation between quantum and classical communication complexity Gavinsky (2016) and is obtained using a quantum protocol where all parties are efficient. More precisely, we give an explicit partial Boolean function f over inputs of length N , such that: f can be computed by a simultaneous-message quantum protocol with communication complexity polylog( N ) (where at the beginning of the protocol Alice and Bob also have polylog( N ) entangled EPR pairs). Any classical randomized protocol for f , with any number of rounds, has communication complexity at least \(\tilde{\Omega}\left(N^{1/4}\right)\) . All parties in the quantum protocol of Item (1) (Alice, Bob and the referee) can be implemented by quantum circuits of size polylog( N ) (where Alice and Bob have oracle access to their inputs). Items (1), (2) qualitatively match the strongest known separation between quantum and classical communication complexity, proved by Gavinsky (2016). Item (3) is new. (Our result is incomparable to the one of Gavinsky. While he obtained a quantitatively better lower bound of \(\Omega\left(N^{1/2}\right)\) in the classical case, the referee in his quantum protocol is inefficient). Exponential separations of quantum and classical communication complexity have been studied in numerous previous works, but to the best of our knowledge the efficiency of the parties in the quantum protocol has not been addressed, and in most previous separations the quantum parties seem to be inefficient. The only separations that we know of that have efficient quantum parties are the recent separations that are based on lifting Göös et al. (2017), Chattopadhyay et al. (2019a). However, these separations seem to require quantum protocols with at least two rounds of communication, so they imply a separation of two-way quantum and classical communication complexity, but they do not give the stronger separations of simultaneous-message quantum communication complexity vs. two-way classical communication complexity (or even one-way quantum communication complexity vs. two-way classical communication complexity). Our proof technique is completely new, in the context of communication complexity, and is based on techniques from Raz & Tal (2019). Our function f is based on a lift of the forrelation problem, using xor as a gadget.
We study a new type of separations between quantum and classical communication complexity, separations that are obtained using quantum protocols where all parties are efficient , in the sense that they can be implemented by small quantum circuits, with oracle access to their inputs. Our main result qualitatively matches the strongest known separation between quantum and classical communication complexity Gavinsky (2016) and is obtained using a quantum protocol where all parties are efficient. More precisely, we give an explicit partial Boolean function f over inputs of length N , such that: f can be computed by a simultaneous-message quantum protocol with communication complexity polylog( N ) (where at the beginning of the protocol Alice and Bob also have polylog( N ) entangled EPR pairs). Any classical randomized protocol for f , with any number of rounds, has communication complexity at least (\tilde{\Omega}\left(N^{1/4}\right)) . All parties in the quantum protocol of Item (1) (Alice, Bob and the referee) can be implemented by quantum circuits of size polylog( N ) (where Alice and Bob have oracle access to their inputs). Items (1), (2) qualitatively match the strongest known separation between quantum and classical communication complexity, proved by Gavinsky (2016). Item (3) is new. (Our result is incomparable to the one of Gavinsky. While he obtained a quantitatively better lower bound of (\Omega\left(N^{1/2}\right)) in the classical case, the referee in his quantum protocol is inefficient). Exponential separations of quantum and classical communication complexity have been studied in numerous previous works, but to the best of our knowledge the efficiency of the parties in the quantum protocol has not been addressed, and in most previous separations the quantum parties seem to be inefficient. The only separations that we know of that have efficient quantum parties are the recent separations that are based on lifting Göös et al. (2017), Chattopadhyay et al. (2019a). However, these separations seem to require quantum protocols with at least two rounds of communication, so they imply a separation of two-way quantum and classical communication complexity, but they do not give the stronger separations of simultaneous-message quantum communication complexity vs. two-way classical communication complexity (or even one-way quantum communication complexity vs. two-way classical communication complexity). Our proof technique is completely new, in the context of communication complexity, and is based on techniques from Raz & Tal (2019). Our function f is based on a lift of the forrelation problem, using xor as a gadget.
We study the relative power of public randomness and quantum communication in the multiparty Simultaneous Message Passing (SMP) model. By analyzing a total Boolean function and a relational problem, we establish polynomial and exponential separations between classical public-coin protocols and quantum protocols without shared randomness or prior entanglement.
We first introduce XOR Equality, a total Boolean function in which each of k players receives an unrestricted string xj∈{0,1}n, and the referee must decide whether x1⊕⋯⊕xk=0n. For k≥8 and worst-case error at most 1/3, we prove quantum lower bounds of Ω(min{n,k2}) on total communication and Ω(min{n/k,k}) on maximum message length. A classical public-coin protocol uses two bits per player with error at most 1/4. For n=k2 and worst-case error at most 1/3, we prove that quantum protocols require maximum message length Ω(n) qubits, whereas two public-coin bits per player suffice.
We then turn to relations, for which we obtain exponential separations. Specifically, we study Multiparty Index Coordination, a k-player generalization of the two-player relation studied by Gavinsky, Kempe, Regev, and de Wolf (STOC 2006). We prove an unambiguous quantum lower bound of Ω(n1−1/k) on maximum message length, matched by a classical private-coin protocol. For any fixed error ε∈(0,1/8), we also prove a bounded-error quantum lower bound of Ω(n(k−1)/(k+1)) while we show that public-coin protocols solve the relation unambiguously with maximum message length O(logn), giving exponential separations in both regimes. The implicit constants are independent of k, and both quantum lower bounds become linear when k≥clogn for any fixed c>0.
Numbers-on-Forehead (NOF) communication model is a central model in communication complexity. As a restricted variant, one-way NOF model is of particular interest. Establishing strong one-way NOF lower bounds would imply circuit lower bounds, resolve well-known problems in additive combinatorics, and yield wide-ranging applications in areas such as cryptography and distributed computing. However, proving strong lower bounds in one-way NOF communication remains highly challenging; many fundamental questions in one-way NOF communication remain wide open. One of the fundamental questions, proposed by Gavinsky and Pudlák (CCC 2008), is to establish an explicit exponential separation between quantum and classical one-way NOF communication.
In this paper, we resolve this open problem by establishing the first exponential separation between quantum and randomized communication complexity in one-way NOF model. Specifically, we define a lifted variant of the Hidden Matching problem of Bar-Yossef, Jayram, and Kerenidis (STOC 2004) and show that it admits an (O(logn))-cost quantum protocol in the one-way NOF setting. By contrast, we prove that any k-party one-way randomized protocol for this problem requires communication Ω(2k/3n1/3). Notably, our separation applies even to a generalization of k-player one-way communication, where the first player speaks once, and all other k−1 players can communicate freely.
The private simultaneous messages model is a non-interactive version of the multiparty secure computation, which has been intensively studied to examine the communication cost of the secure computation. We consider its quantum counterpart, the private simultaneous quantum messages (PSQM) model, and examine the advantages of quantum communication and prior entanglement of this model. In the PSQM model, k parties P1,…,Pk initially share a common random string (or entangled states in a stronger setting), and they have private classical inputs x1,…,xk. Every Pi generates a quantum message from the private input xi and the shared random string (entangled states), and then sends it to the referee R. Receiving the messages, R computes F(x1,…,xk). Then, R learns nothing except for F(x1,…,xk) as the privacy condition. We obtain the following results for this PSQM model. (1) We demonstrate that the privacy condition inevitably increases the communication cost in the two-party PSQM model as well as in the classical case presented by Applebaum, Holenstein, Mishra, and Shayevitz. In particular, we prove a lower bound (3−o(1))n of the communication complexity in two-party PSQM protocols with a shared random string for random Boolean functions of 2n-bit input, which is larger than the trivial upper bound 2n of the communication complexity without the privacy condition. (2) We demonstrate a factor two gap between the communication complexity of PSQM protocols with shared entangled states and with shared random strings by designing a multiparty PSQM protocol with shared entangled states for a total function that extends the two-party equality function. (3) We demonstrate an exponential gap between the communication complexity of PSQM protocols with shared entangled states and with shared random strings for a two-party partial function.
We study the advantages of quantum communication models over classical communication models that are equipped with a limited number of qubits of entanglement. In this direction, we give explicit partial functions on n bits for which reducing the entanglement increases the classical communication complexity exponentially. Our separations are as follows. For every k≥1: Q∥∗ versus R2∗: We show that quantum simultaneous protocols with Θ~(k5log3n) qubits of entanglement can exponentially outperform two-way randomized protocols with O(k) qubits of entanglement. This resolves an open problem from [Gav08] and improves the state-of-the-art separations between quantum simultaneous protocols with entanglement and two-way randomized protocols without entanglement [Gav19, GRT22]. R∥∗ versus Q∥∗: We show that classical simultaneous protocols with Θ~(klogn) qubits of entanglement can exponentially outperform quantum simultaneous protocols with O(k) qubits of entanglement, resolving an open question from [GKRW06, Gav19]. The best result prior to our work was a relational separation against protocols without entanglement [GKRW06]. R∥∗ versus R1∗: We show that classical simultaneous protocols with Θ~(klogn) qubits of entanglement can exponentially outperform randomized one-way protocols with O(k) qubits of entanglement. Prior to our work, only a relational separation was known [Gav08]. Our techniques can also be used to show advantages of quantum communication models over hybrid classical-quantum models, i.e., models that have a large amount of both classical communication and quantum simultaneous communication.
The Forrelation problem, introduced by Aaronson [A10] and Aaronson and Ambainis [AA15], is a well studied problem in the context of separating quantum and classical models. Variants of this problem were used to give exponential separations between quantum and classical query complexity [A10, AA15]; quantum query complexity and bounded-depth circuits [RT19]; and quantum and classical communication complexity [GRT19]. In all these separations, the lower bound for the classical model only holds when the advantage of the protocol (over a random guess) is more than ≈1/N, that is, the success probability is larger than ≈1/2+1/N. To achieve separations when the classical protocol has smaller advantage, we study in this work the XOR of k independent copies of the Forrelation function (where k≪N). We prove a very general result that shows that any family of Boolean functions that is closed under restrictions, whose Fourier mass at level 2k is bounded by αk, cannot compute the XOR of k independent copies of the Forrelation function with advantage better than O(Nk/2αk). This is a strengthening of a result of [CHLT19], that gave a similar result for k=1, using the technique of [RT19]. As an application of our result, we give the first example of a partial Boolean function that can be computed by a simultaneous-message quantum protocol of cost $\mbox{polylog}(N)$ (when players share $\mbox{polylog}(N)$ EPR pairs), however, any classical interactive randomized protocol of cost at most o~(N1/4), has quasipolynomially small advantage over a random guess. We also give the first example of a partial Boolean function that has a quantum query algorithm of cost $\mbox{polylog}(N)$, and such that, any constant-depth circuit of quasipolynomial size has quasipolynomially small advantage over a random guess.
We refine Gavinsky's framework (arXiv:2608.18784) for exponential separations between quantum and randomized communication complexity of total functions and obtain larger separations: polylogarithmic quantum communication versus Ω~(n) randomized communication with two quantum messages, and versus Ω(n1−ε) for every fixed 0<ε<1 with more quantum messages.