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 $x_j\in\{0,1\}^n$, and the referee must decide whether $x_1\oplus\cdots\oplus x_k=0^n$. For $k\ge8$ and worst-case error at most $1/3$, we prove quantum lower bounds of $Ω(\min\{n,k^2\})$ 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 $n=k^2$ and worst-case error at most $1/3$, we prove that quantum protocols require maximum message length $Ω(\sqrt n)$ 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 $Ω(n^{1-1/k})$ on maximum message length, matched by a classical private-coin protocol. For any fixed error $\varepsilon\in(0,1/8)$, 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 $O(\log n)$, giving exponential separations in both regimes. The implicit constants are independent of $k$, and both quantum lower bounds become linear when $k\ge c\log n$ for any fixed $c>0$.
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.
In this paper we study a quantum version of the multiparty simultaneous message-passing (SMP) model, and we show that in some cases, quantum communication can replace public randomness, even with no entanglement between the parties. This was already known for two players, but not for more than two players, and indeed, so far all that was known was a negative result. Our main technical contribution is a compiler that takes any classical public-coin simultaneous protocol based on "modified equality queries," and converts it into a quantum simultaneous protocol without public coins with roughly the same communication complexity. We then use our compiler to derive protocols for several problems, including frequency moments, neighborhood diversity, enumeration of isolated cliques, and more.
In the private simultaneous message (PSM) setting, k players obtain inputs xi∈{0,1}n and then each send messages to a referee, who should learn f(x1,...,xk) but no other information about (x1,...,xk). The PSM setting was introduced as a minimal model for secure multiparty computation and has connections to Boolean function complexity. In the quantum setting, PSM has been related to non-local quantum computation (NLQC). The communication and correlation cost of implementing PSM remains poorly understood. Here, we give new upper and lower bounds on the (quantum) PSM model. For lower bounds, we show: 1) Nečiporuk's measure lower bounds the entanglement required for k-player quantum PSM with perfect correctness. This leads to quadratic lower bounds for explicit functions. 2) The rank of the communication matrix of f(x1,x2) lower bounds 2-player quantum PSM with perfect privacy but imperfect correctness. This implies a previously unknown lower bound on classical PSM with imperfect correctness. When allowing quantum communication and shared entanglement, these are the first lower bounds on quantum PSM that make use of the privacy condition. For upper bounds, we show: 1) Letting s be the size of a quantum circuit computing f, df be the circuit depth, k the number of players, n the number of bits received by each player, and ε a correctness parameter, we obtain PSMk∗(f)≤(kn+s)⋅logO(df)(s/ε). 2) The square of the Fourier 1 norm of f, ∥f^∥12, upper bounds the classical PSM complexity, PSM(f)≤O(∥f^∥12). In proving the first upper bound, we generalize existing T-depth based techniques for NLQC from 2 to k≥2 parties, and consider cases where the Clifford layers are restricted to having small light cones.
Computing many instances jointly can reduce communication per instance. We ask whether such savings occur in the simultaneous-message-passing (SMP) model and how they depend on quantum messages and shared resources. For every finite total function f and fixed error 0≤ε<1, we prove that the optimal worst-case communication per instance for fn converges to D∥(f)=log∣Row(f)∣+log∣Col(f)∣, where Row(f) and Col(f) are the sets of distinct rows and columns of the table (f(x,y))x,y. This holds for classical and quantum SMP without shared entanglement, with or without shared randomness. Thus, transmitting row and column indices is asymptotically optimal, even with bounded error, joint computation, and quantum messages. In particular, the exponential advantage of quantum fingerprinting for a single instance of equality without shared randomness disappears in the asymptotic rate. We also prove that the same threshold governs an exponential strong converse: every fixed worst-case communication rate below it forces the probability of computing all n outputs correctly to decay as 2−Ω(n), even on average under a fixed product input distribution. With shared randomness, the optimal expected communication rate is (1−ε)D∥(f). Entanglement shared between each sender and the referee halves both rates; arbitrary tripartite entanglement gives no further reduction. The results extend to a class of total relations and yield one-way characterizations with D∥(f) replaced by log∣Row(f)∣. Our proof reduces SMP to one-way communication and relates successful computation to sampling based on quantum min-entropy; we also give a simpler proof of the key lemma using the pretty-good measurement.
In this paper we study a quantum version of the multiparty simultaneous message-passing (SMP) model, and we show that in some cases, quantum communication can replace public randomness, even with no entanglement between the parties. This was already known for two players, but not for more than two players, and indeed, so far all that was known was a negative result. Our main technical contribution is a compiler that takes any classical public-coin simultaneous protocol based on "modified equality queries," and converts it into a quantum simultaneous protocol without public coins with roughly the same communication complexity. We then use our compiler to derive protocols for several problems, including frequency moments, neighborhood diversity, enumeration of isolated cliques, and more.
Private simultaneous quantum messages (PSQM) provide a minimal model of noninteractive secure multiparty quantum computation, yet their communication complexity for concrete functions remains poorly understood. We show that familiar total functions already exhibit both genuine quantum advantages and strong structural limitations. For three-party equality on n-bit inputs, which determines whether the players' n-bit strings are identical, we construct an entanglement-assisted protocol with asymptotic communication (1.633…)n qubits, whereas every perfectly correct protocol without prior entanglement requires at least 3n qubits. For three-bit majority, one shared GHZ state and one transmitted qubit per player suffice for perfect correctness and perfect privacy, reducing the communication from the optimal classical cost of six bits to three qubits. Three-bit AND behaves differently. No perfectly correct and perfectly private protocol exists when the players share an arbitrary three-qubit state, apply arbitrary local unitary encodings, and transmit one qubit each. However, increasing the local dimension overcomes this obstruction: one shared three-qutrit GHZ state and one transmitted qutrit per player yield a one-shot protocol with total communication 3log23. Together with the six-bit classical lower bound, this gives a strict quantum communication advantage. More generally, for every k≥3, we construct a perfectly correct and perfectly private one-shot protocol for k-bit AND using one qudit of dimension at most k per player, and hence at most klog2k qubits in total.
We study the complexity of quantum decomposable randomized encodings (QDRE). We establish a bi-directional connection between the QDRE model and the communication complexity model of quantum private simultaneous message protocols (QPSM), where classical communication is free, and quantum communication is the primary complexity measure. We show the following upper and lower bounds. (1) For every quantum channel mapping n to m qubits, we give a QPSM protocol with quantum communication m, using exponential pre-shared entanglement. In particular, constant-output channels have O(1) quantum communication, and classical-output channels require no quantum communication. (2) With O(n) pre-shared entanglement, every one-qubit-output channel has an O(n)-quantum-communication QPSM protocol. Conversely, there exists a channel and a constant c>0 for which any protocol with at most cn pre-shared entanglement requires Ω(n) quantum communication. (3) In contrast, we identify a structured class of quantum channels, Clifford-induced channels, for which there exist QPSM protocols with O(n) pre-shared entangled qubits and only O(1) quantum communication complexity. Through our connection, we obtain analogous upper and lower bounds on the quantum encoding size of QDRE. Our results show that the amount of pre-shared entanglement plays a central role in quantum encoding size and quantum communication complexity.