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Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science

Quantum Information and the PCP Theorem

Ran Raz

Published Nov 15, 2005• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Our main result is that the membership x /spl epsi/ SAT (for x of length n) can be proved by a logarithmic-size quantum state |/spl Psi/>, together with a polynomial-size classical proof consisting of blocks of length polylog(n) bits each, such that after measuring the state |/spl Psi/> the verifier only needs to read one block of the classical proof. This shows that if a short quantum witness is available then a (classical) PCP with only one query is possible. Our second result is that the class QIP/qpoly contains all languages. That is, for any language L (even non-recursive), the membership x /spl epsi/ L (for x of length n) can be proved by a polynomial-size quantum interactive proof, where the verifier is a polynomial-size quantum circuit with working space initiated with some quantum state |/spl Psi//sub L,n/> (depending only on L and n). Moreover, the interactive proof that we give is of only one round, and the messages communicated are classical. The advice |/spl Psi//sub L,n/> given to the verifier can also be replaced by a classical probabilistic advice, as long as this advice is kept as a secret from the proven Our result can hence be interpreted as: the class IP/rpoly contains all languages. For the proof of the second result, we introduce the quantum low-degree-extension of a string of bits. The main result requires an additional machinery of quantum low-degree-test.

DOI
10.1109/sfcs.2005.62

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Our main result is that the membership x /spl epsi/ SAT (for x of length n) can be proved by a logarithmic-size quantum state |/spl Psi/>, together with a polynomial-size classical proof consisting of blocks of length polylog(n) bits each, such that after measuring the state |/spl Psi/> the verifier only needs to read one block of the classical proof. This shows that if a short quantum witness is available then a (classical) PCP with only one query is possible. Our second result is that the class QIP/qpoly contains all languages. That is, for any language L (even non-recursive), the membership x /spl epsi/ L (for x of length n) can be proved by a polynomial-size quantum interactive proof, where the verifier is a polynomial-size quantum circuit with working space initiated with some quantum state |/spl Psi//sub L,n/> (depending only on L and n). Moreover, the interactive proof that we give is of only one round, and the messages communicated are classical. The advice |/spl Psi//sub L,n/> given to the verifier can also be replaced by a classical probabilistic advice, as long as this advice is kept as a secret from the proven Our result can hence be interpreted as: the class IP/rpoly contains all languages. For the proof of the second result, we introduce the quantum low-degree-extension of a string of bits. The main result requires an additional machinery of quantum low-degree-test.
Our main result is that the membership x ∈ SAT (for x of length n) can be proved by a logarithmic-size quantum state |Ψ〉, together with a polynomial-size classical proof consisting of blocks of length polylog(n) bits each, such that after measuring the state |Ψ 〉 the verifier only needs to read one block of the classical proof. This shows that if a short quantum witness is available then a (classical) PCP with only one query is possible. Our second result is that the class QIP/qpoly contains all languages. That is, for any language L (even non-recursive), the membership x ∈ L (for x of length n) can be proved by a polynomial-size quantum interactive proof, where the verifier is a polynomial-size quantum circuit with working space initiated with some quantum state |ΨL,n 〉 (depending only on L and n). Moreover, the interactive proof that we give is of only one round, and the messages communicated are classical. The advice |ΨL,n 〉 given to the verifier can also be replaced by a classical probabilistic advice, as long as this advice is kept as a secret from the prover. Our result can hence be interpreted as: the class IP/rpoly contains all languages. For the proof of the second result, we introduce the quantum low-degree-extension of a string of bits. The main result requires an additional machinery of quantum lowdegree-test.
The model of interactive oracle proofs (IOP) generalizes the notion of probabilistically checkable proof (PCP), in which a static proof is verified probabilistically by querying a small number of bits, to the interactive setting: a polynomial-time verifier interacts with an unbounded prover, but is restricted to only reading a small number of bits, in total, from the messages sent by the prover. IOPs provide a relaxed setting in which to study local probabilistic verification. They have proved instrumental in devising efficient methods for verification through subsequent compilation into non-interactive or succinct protocols. We study a quantum analogue of interactive oracle proofs (qIOP) in which the verifier and communication are both allowed to be quantum; yet the verifier is restricted to perform measurements only on a small number of qubits received from the prover. Our main result is a qIOP for any language in QMA, in which the total communication is polynomial but the verifier only reads a polylogarithmic number of qubits in total. The protocol has completeness parameter exponentially close to 111 and soundness bounded away from 111 by a constant. In the absence of a quantum PCP theorem, this provides the first information-theoretically sound local and robust characterization of QMA, albeit interactive. Our protocol combines the use of a quantum locally testable code (LTC) with classical techniques, notably probabilistically checkable proofs of proximity (PCPP). We avoid the necessity for complex multi-qubit tests employed in other settings by leveraging the local indistinguishability property of the quantum LTC.
We show how to encode 2n2^n2n (classical) bits a1,...,a2na_1,...,a_{2^n}a1​,...,a2n​ by a single quantum state ∣Ψ>|Ψ>∣Ψ> of size O(n) qubits, such that: for any constant kkk and any i1,...,ik∈{1,...,2n}i_1,...,i_k \in \{1,...,2^n\}i1​,...,ik​∈{1,...,2n}, the values of the bits ai1,...,aika_{i_1},...,a_{i_k}ai1​​,...,aik​​ can be retrieved from ∣Ψ>|Ψ>∣Ψ> by a one-round Arthur-Merlin interactive protocol of size polynomial in nnn. This shows how to go around Holevo-Nayak's Theorem, using Arthur-Merlin proofs. We use the new representation to prove the following results: 1) Interactive proofs with quantum advice: We show that the class QIP/qpolyQIP/qpolyQIP/qpoly contains ALL languages. That is, for any language LLL (even non-recursive), the membership x∈Lx \in Lx∈L (for xxx of length nnn) can be proved by a polynomial-size quantum interactive proof, where the verifier is a polynomial-size quantum circuit with working space initiated with some quantum state ∣ΨL,n>|Ψ_{L,n} >∣ΨL,n​> (depending only on LLL and nnn). Moreover, the interactive proof that we give is of only one round, and the messages communicated are classical. 2) PCP with only one query: We show that the membership x∈SATx \in SATx∈SAT (for xxx of length nnn) can be proved by a logarithmic-size quantum state ∣Ψ>|Ψ>∣Ψ>, together with a polynomial-size classical proof consisting of blocks of length polylog(n)polylog(n)polylog(n) bits each, such that after measuring the state ∣Ψ>|Ψ>∣Ψ> the verifier only needs to read {\bf one} block of the classical proof. While the first result is a straight forward consequence of the new representation, the second requires an additional machinery of quantum low-degree-test that may be interesting in its own right.
The model of interactive oracle proofs (IOP) generalizes the notion of probabilistically checkable proof (PCP), in which a static proof is verified probabilistically by querying a small number of bits, to the interactive setting: a polynomial-time verifier interacts with an unbounded prover, but is restricted to only reading a small number of bits, in total, from the messages sent by the prover. IOPs provide a relaxed setting in which to study local probabilistic verification. They have proved instrumental in devising efficient methods for verification through subsequent compilation into non-interactive or succinct protoocls. We study a quantum analogue of interactive oracle proofs (qIOP) in which the verifier and communication are both allowed to be quantum; yet the verifier is restricted to perform measurements only on a small number of qubits received from the prover. Our main result is a qIOP for any language in QMA, in which the total communication is polynomial but the verifier only reads a polylogarithmic number of qubits in total. The protocol has completeness parameter exponentially close to 1 and soundness bounded away from 1 by a constant. In the absence of a quantum PCP theorem, this provides the first information-theoretically sound local and robust characterization of QMA, albeit interactive. Previous works in the information-theoretic setting either considered two isolated but entangled quantum provers or quantum verifiers whose effort in a single round is small but remains polynomial when aggregated across all rounds of the protocol. Our protocol combines the use of a quantum locally testable code (LTC) with classical techniques, notably probabilistically checkable proofs of proximity (PCPP). We avoid the necessity for complex multi-qubit tests employed in other settings by leveraging the local indistinguishability property of the quantum LTC.
It is not known whether a classical polynomial-time verifier can verify arbitrary polynomial-time quantum computations with an efficient quantum honest prover without computational assumptions. We show that, relative to a classical oracle, such verification is possible for a language beyond the polynomial hierarchy that is decided exactly in quantum polynomial time. The protocol is public-coin, with perfect completeness and soundness error at most 1/4. To our knowledge, no language with such a proof system was previously proved to lie outside AM relative to an oracle. For every unbounded polynomial-time computable function, the oracle can be chosen so that the message count and the oracle query counts of the quantum algorithm, verifier, and honest prover are bounded by this function of the input length. The message count is optimal up to a constant factor, since for a suitable oracle every interactive proof system for the language uses at least a constant fraction of the messages of our protocol on infinitely many lengths, with a constant depending on its verifier. The language is a variant of recursive Fourier sampling in which code tables encode secrets that address data tables. The tables are evaluated recursively, and the oracle stores only the leaves. The quantum algorithm recovers every secret exactly, and the verifier checks the prover's secrets recursively against random code entries. The recursion restricts the input in a correlated way, as the same secret fixes the code bits and chooses the free coordinate, so Håstad's switching lemma does not apply. We prove a switching theorem for these restrictions, which may be of independent interest. For instances of sufficient height, no constant-depth circuit of size 2poly(n)2^{\mathrm{poly}(n)}2poly(n) changes its output with probability above 2−Ω(n)2^{-Ω(n)}2−Ω(n) when the answer of a random instance is flipped by changing a single leaf.
Quantum information and computation provide a fascinating twist on the notion of proofs in computational complexity theory. For instance, one may consider a quantum computational analogue of the complexity class NP, known as QMA, in which a quantum state plays the role of a proof (also called a certificate or witness), and is checked by a polynomial-time quantum computation. For some problems, the fact that a quantum proof state could be a superposition over exponentially many classical states appears to offer computational advantages over classical proof strings. In the interactive proof system setting, one may consider a verifier and one or more provers that exchange and process quantum information rather than classical information during an interaction for a given input string, giving rise to quantum complexity classes such as QIP, QSZK, and QMIP* that represent natural quantum analogues of IP, SZK, and MIP. While quantum interactive proof systems inherit some properties from their classical counterparts, they also possess distinct and uniquely quantum features that lead to an interesting landscape of complexity classes based on variants of this model. In this survey we provide an overview of many of the known results concerning quantum proofs, computational models based on this concept, and properties of the complexity classes they define. In particular, we discuss non-interactive proofs and the complexity class QMA, single-prover quantum interactive proof systems and the complexity class QIP, statistical zero-knowledge quantum interactive proof systems and the complexity class QSZK, and multiprover interactive proof systems and the complexity classes QMIP, QMIP*, and MIP*.