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arXiv:2606.31753

Distributed Property Testing with (Quantum) Carrier Pigeons: Tight Bounds on State Certification

Kenny Chen

quant-phcs.DSSubmitted Jun 30, 2026• Announced Jul 1, 2026• 0 citations
v1 · Jun 30, 2026v2 · Jul 3, 2026
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Abstract

Recently, Doosti et al. introduced the problem of distributed quantum state verification, where $m$ distributed nodes are given a copy of an unknown state $ρ$, and can send limited one way communication to a central node, who has a complete description of a known state $σ$. They ask how many distributed nodes $m$ are required, before the central node can succeed at distinguishing whether $ρ=σ$ or $\|ρ-σ\|_1\geq\varepsilon$ with high probability. In the setting where only quantum communication is allowed, Doosti et al. exhibit conditional lower bounds in both the public and private-coin settings, and a matching upper bound in the public-coin setting. We extend these results, and show unconditional lower bounds for when both classical and quantum communication are permitted. We show the public-coin lower bound is tight by giving an algorithm with a matching upper bound. We also show an almost tight upper bound in the private-coin setting when only quantum communication is permitted.

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•Jul 22, 2012•1 citation
Recently, Doosti et al. introduced the problem of distributed quantum state verification, where mmm distributed nodes are given a copy of an unknown state ρρρ, and can send limited one way communication to a central node, who has a complete description of a known state σσσ. They ask how many distributed nodes mmm are required, before the central node can succeed at distinguishing whether ρ=σρ=σρ=σ or ∥ρ−σ∥1≥ε\|ρ-σ\|_1\geq\varepsilon∥ρ−σ∥1​≥ε with high probability. In the setting where only quantum communication is allowed, Doosti et al. exhibit conditional lower bounds in both the public and private-coin settings, and a matching upper bound in the public-coin setting. We extend these results, and show unconditional lower bounds for when both classical and quantum communication are permitted. We show the public-coin lower bound is tight by giving an algorithm with a matching upper bound. We also show an almost tight upper bound in the private-coin setting when only quantum communication is permitted.
We introduce a framework for distributed quantum inference under communication constraints. In our model, mmm distributed nodes each receive one copy of an unknown ddd-dimensional quantum state ρρρ, before communicating via a constrained one-way communication channel with a central node, which aims to infer some property of ρρρ. This framework generalizes the classical distributed inference framework introduced by Acharya, Canonne, and Tyagi [COLT 2019], by allowing quantum resources such as quantum communication and shared entanglement. Within this setting, we focus on the fundamental problem of quantum state certification: Given a complete description of some state σσσ, decide whether ρ=σρ=σρ=σ or ∥ρ−σ∥1≥ε\|ρ-σ\|_1\geq ε∥ρ−σ∥1​≥ε. Additionally, we focus on the case of limited communication between distributed nodes and the central node: we assume each communication channel is limited to only ncn_cnc​ bits and nqn_qnq​ qubits with nc+nq≤log⁡dn_c + n_q \leq \log dnc​+nq​≤logd. When all nodes can make use of a shared source of randomness, we show that the copy complexity of distributed state certification is Θ(d22nq2nc/2ε2)Θ(\frac{d^2}{2^{n_q} 2^{n_c/2}ε^2})Θ(2nq​2nc​/2ε2d2​). We further demonstrate that shared randomness is necessary to achieve the above complexity, by proving an Ω(d34nq2ncε2)Ω(\frac{d^3}{4^{n_q} 2^{n_c} ε^2})Ω(4nq​2nc​ε2d3​) lower bound in the private-coin\textit{private-coin}private-coin setting. Moreover, we develop a private-coin algorithm that matches this bound up to a log⁡d\sqrt{\log d}logd​ factor, showing this complexity is near-optimal. Together, our work establishes a general framework for distributed quantum inference with communication constraints and characterizes the complexity of distributed state certification with limited communication.
We introduce a framework for distributed quantum inference under communication constraints. In our model, mmm distributed nodes each receive one copy of an unknown ddd-dimensional quantum state ρρρ, before communicating via a constrained one-way communication channel with a central node, which aims to infer some property of ρρρ. This framework generalizes the classical distributed inference framework introduced by Acharya, Canonne, and Tyagi [COLT2019], by allowing quantum resources such as quantum communication and shared entanglement. Within this setting, we focus on the fundamental problem of quantum state certification: Given a complete description of some state σσσ, decide whether ρ=σρ=σρ=σ or ∥ρ−σ∥1≥ε\|ρ-σ\|_1\geq ε∥ρ−σ∥1​≥ε. Additionally, we focus on the case of limited quantum communication between distributed nodes and the central node. We show that when each communication channel is limited to only nq≤log⁡dn_q\leq \log dnq​≤logd qubits, then the sample complexity of distributed state certification is O(d22nqε2)\mathcal{O}(\frac{d^2}{2^{n_q}ε^2})O(2nq​ε2d2​) when public randomness is available to all nodes. Moreover, under the assumption that the channels used by the distributed nodes are mixedness-preserving, we prove a matching lower bound. We further demonstrate that shared randomness is necessary to achieve the above complexity, by proving an Ω(d34nqε2)Ω(\frac{d^3}{4^{n_q} ε^2})Ω(4nq​ε2d3​) lower bound in the private-coin setting under the same assumption as above. Our lower bounds leverage a recently introduced quantum analogue of the celebrated Ingster-Suslina method and generalize arguments from the classical setting. Together, our work provides the first characterization of distributed quantum state certification in the regime of limited quantum communication and establishes a general framework for distributed quantum inference with communication constraints.
Quantum state certification concerns a resource-efficient way to verify whether a quantum device produces a prescribed target state without reconstructing the state in full, making it a fundamental primitive for validating quantum systems. We consider the private-coin model with only quantum communication, where the parties have no shared randomness or preshared entanglement, and no additional classical communication is allowed. We establish the optimal sample complexity, thereby closing the logarithmic gap between the previously established upper and lower bounds in this model. Remarkably, our upper bound attains the log-free optimum using a fixed family of Clifford encoders. Thus, optimal distributed state certification under private coins and quantum-only communication does not require general quantum encoders.
Understanding the power and limitations of classical and quantum information and how they differ is a fundamental endeavor. In property testing of distributions, a tester is given samples over a typically large domain {0,1}n\{0,1\}^n{0,1}n. An important property is the support size both of distributions [Valiant and Valiant, STOC'11], as well, as of quantum states. Classically, even given 2n/162^{n/16}2n/16 samples, no tester can distinguish distributions of support size 2n/82^{n/8}2n/8 from 2n/42^{n/4}2n/4 with probability better than 2−Θ(n)2^{-Θ(n)}2−Θ(n), even promised they are flat. Quantum states can be in a coherent superposition of states of {0,1}n\{0,1\}^n{0,1}n, so one may ask if coherence can enhance property testing. Flat distributions naturally correspond to subset states, ∣ϕS⟩=1/∣S∣∑i∈S∣i⟩|ϕ_S \rangle=1/\sqrt{|S|}\sum_{i\in S}|i\rangle∣ϕS​⟩=1/∣S∣​∑i∈S​∣i⟩. We show that coherence alone is not enough, Coherence limitations: Given 2n/162^{n/16}2n/16 copies, no tester can distinguish subset states of size 2n/82^{n/8}2n/8 from 2n/42^{n/4}2n/4 with probability better than 2−Θ(n)2^{-Θ(n)}2−Θ(n). The hardness persists even with multiple public-coin AM provers, Classical hardness with provers: Given 2O(n)2^{O(n)}2O(n) samples from a distribution and 2O(n)2^{O(n)}2O(n) communication with AM provers, no tester can estimate the support size up to factors 2Ω(n)2^{Ω(n)}2Ω(n) with probability better than 2−Θ(n)2^{-Θ(n)}2−Θ(n). Our result is tight. In contrast, coherent subset state proofs suffice to improve testability exponentially, Quantum advantage with certificates: With poly-many copies and subset state proofs, a tester can approximate the support size of a subset state of arbitrary size. Some structural assumption on the quantum proofs is required since we show, Collapse of QMA: A general proof cannot improve testability of any quantum property whatsoever. We also show connections to disentangler and quantum-to-quantum transformation lower bounds.
In this work, we consider the fundamental task of quantum state certification: given copies of an unknown quantum state ρρρ, test whether it matches some target state σσσ or is εεε-far from it. For certifying ddd-dimensional states, Θ(d/ε2)Θ(d/ε^2)Θ(d/ε2) copies of ρρρ are known to be necessary and sufficient. However, the algorithm achieving this complexity makes fully entangled measurements over all O(d/ε2)O(d/ε^2)O(d/ε2) copies of ρρρ. Often, one is interested in certifying states to a high precision; this makes such joint measurements intractable even for low-dimensional states. Thus, we study whether one can obtain optimal rates for quantum state certification and related testing problems while only performing measurements on ttt copies at once, for some 1<t≪d/ε21 < t \ll d/ε^21<t≪d/ε2. While it is well-understood how to use intermediate entanglement to achieve optimal quantum state learning, the only protocol known to achieve optimal testing is the one using fully entangled measurements. Our main result is a smooth copy complexity upper bound for state certification as a function of ttt, which achieves a near-optimal rate at t=d2t = d^2t=d2. In the high-precision regime, i.e., for ε<1dε< \frac{1}{\sqrt{d}}ε<d​1​, this is a strict improvement over the entanglement used by the aforementioned optimal protocol. We also extend our techniques to develop new algorithms for the related tasks of mixedness testing and purity estimation, and show tradeoffs achieving the optimal rates for these problems at t=d2t = d^2t=d2 as well. Our algorithms are based on novel reductions from testing to learning and leverage recent advances in quantum state tomography in a non-black-box fashion. We complement our testing upper bounds with a (nearly) matching lower bound that holds in the high-precision regime, implying that one must take t≥Ω(d2)t \geq Ω(d^2)t≥Ω(d2) to achieve the optimal rate for certification.
We study lower bounds for quantum distributed computing, where a set of nodes (representing quantum computers) interconnected by an underlying network consisting of (bandwidth-restricted) links, communicate using quantum communication. Nodes have unlimited computational power and may share an unlimited number of entangled qubits. Our main contribution is a simple uniform technique for proving lower bounds for quantum distributed algorithms. In particular, we identify a new quantum communication model called the Server model which provides a connection between distributed algorithms and communication complexity: it is strong enough to capture the hardness of several distributed computing problems, while weak enough that several hard problems in two-party communication complexity remain hard; to this end, we identify a set of communication complexity techniques that can be carried over to the Server model, namely techniques based on nonlocal games. We show that these techniques serve as a fundamental tool in proving lower bounds in quantum distributed computing. The new techniques help us to prove several non-trivial quantum distributed lower bounds (which are the first-known quantum bounds for fundamental global problems such as minimum spanning tree, shortest paths etc.), some of which are new even in the classical setting. First, it allows us to show that all previous classical lower bounds of more than twenty verification and optimization graph problems in [Das Sarma et al., STOC 11] also hold in the quantum setting. Many of these bounds are tight, implying a large class of problems that do not gain an advantage from quantum effects. Our results also imply the following new results in the classical communication models: (1) the first randomized lower bounds for Hamiltonian cycle and spanning tree verification problems in both the distributed computing and the communication complexity model, answering the open problem of Das Sarma et al. and subsuming many bounds in [Babai, Frankl, and Simon, FOCS 96], and (2) the first lower bound that is tight for all weight aspect ratios, matching previous upper bounds of [Elkin, STOC 04]. Submitted for a Regular Presentation. The full version of this paper can be found as [15] at http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.5211. ∗Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel. E-mail: elkinm@cs.bgu.ac.il. †Division of Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637371 & Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543. E-mail: hklauck@gmail.com. Research at the Centre for Quantum Technologies is funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation. ‡Division of Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637371. Work partially done while at University of Vienna, Austria. E-mail: danupon@gmail.com. §Division of Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637371 & Department of Computer Science, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. E-mail: gopalpandurangan@gmail.com. Supported in part by the following research grants: Nanyang Technological University grant M58110000, Singapore MOE Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 2 grant MOE2010-T2-2-082, and a grant from the US-Israeli Binational Science Foundation (BSF).