The Local Search problem, which finds a local minimum of a black-box function on a given graph, is of both practical and theoretical importance to many areas in computer science and natural sciences. In this paper, we show that for the Boolean hypercube $\B^n$, the randomized query complexity of Local Search is
Θ(2n/2n1/2) and the quantum query complexity is
Θ(2n/3n1/6). We also show that for the constant dimensional grid
[N1/d]d, the randomized query complexity is
Θ(N1/2) for
d≥4 and the quantum query complexity is
Θ(N1/3) for
d≥6. New lower bounds for lower dimensional grids are also given. These improve the previous results by Aaronson [STOC'04], and Santha and Szegedy [STOC'04]. Finally we show for
[N1/2]2 a new upper bound of
O(N1/4(loglogN)3/2) on the quantum query complexity, which implies that Local Search on grids exhibits different properties at low dimensions.
In 1983, Aldous proved that randomization can speedup local search. For example, it reduces the query complexity of local search over grid \left[ {1:n} \right]^d from \Theta (n^{d - 1} ) to {\rm O}(d^{1/2} n^{d/2} ). It remains open whether randomization helps fixed-point computation. Inspired by the recent advances on the complexity of equilibrium computation, we solve this open problem by giving an asymptotically tight bound of (\Omega (n))^{d - 1} on the randomized query complexity for computing a fixed point of a discrete Brouwer function over grid \left[ {1:n} \right]^d Our result can be extended to the black-box query model for Sperner's Lemma in any dimension. It also yields a tight bound for the computation of d-dimensional approximate Brouwer fixed points as defined by Scarf and by Hirsch, Papadimitriou, and Vavasis. Since the randomized query complexity of global optimization over \left[ {1:n} \right]^d is \Theta (n^d ), the randomized query model over \left[ {1:n} \right]^d strictly separates these three important search problems: Global optimization is harder than fixed-point computation, and fixed-point computation is harder than local search. Our result indeed demonstrates that randomization does not help much in fixed-point computation in the black-box query model. Our randomized lower bound matches the deterministic complexity of this problem, which is \Theta (n^{d - 1} ).