We initiate the systematic study of QMA algorithms in the setting of property testing, to which we refer as QMA proofs of proximity (QMAPs). These are quantum query algorithms that receive explicit access to a sublinear-size untrusted proof and are required to accept inputs having a property $\Pi$ and reject ... more >>>

We study graph computations in an enhanced data streaming setting, where a space-bounded client reading the edge stream of a massive graph may delegate some of its work to a cloud service. We seek algorithms that allow the client to verify a purported proof sent by the cloud service that ... more >>>

An open problem that is widely regarded as one of the most important in quantum query complexity is to resolve the quantum query complexity of the $k$-distinctness function on inputs of size $N$. While the case of $k=2$ (also called Element Distinctness) is well-understood, there is a polynomial gap between ... more >>>

The $\epsilon$-approximate degree of a function $f\colon X \to \{0, 1\}$ is the least degree of a multivariate real polynomial $p$ such that $|p(x)-f(x)| \leq \epsilon$ for all $x \in X$. We determine the $\epsilon$-approximate degree of the element distinctness function, the surjectivity function, and the permutation testing problem, showing ... more >>>

The $\epsilon$-approximate degree $\widetilde{\text{deg}}_\epsilon(f)$ of a Boolean function $f$ is the least degree of a real-valued polynomial that approximates $f$ pointwise to error $\epsilon$. The approximate degree of $f$ is at least $k$ iff there exists a pair of probability distributions, also known as a dual polynomial, that are perfectly ... more >>>

This paper proves new limitations on the power of quantum computers to solve approximate counting---that is, multiplicatively estimating the size of a nonempty set $S\subseteq [N]$.

Given only a membership oracle for $S$, it is well known that approximate counting takes $\Theta(\sqrt{N/|S|})$ quantum queries. But what if a quantum algorithm ... more >>>

The communication class $UPP^{cc}$ is a communication analog of the Turing Machine complexity class $PP$. It is characterized by a matrix-analytic complexity measure called sign-rank (also called dimension complexity), and is essentially the most powerful communication class against which we know how to prove lower bounds.

For a communication problem ... more >>>

We give new quantum algorithms for evaluating composed functions whose inputs may be shared between bottom-level gates. Let $f$ be a Boolean function and consider a function $F$ obtained by applying $f$ to conjunctions of possibly overlapping subsets of $n$ variables. If $f$ has quantum query complexity $Q(f)$, we give ... more >>>

We prove two new results about the inability of low-degree polynomials to uniformly approximate constant-depth circuits, even to slightly-better-than-trivial error. First, we prove a tight $\tilde{\Omega}(n^{1/2})$ lower bound on the threshold degree of the Surjectivity function on $n$ variables. This matches the best known threshold degree bound for any AC$^0$ ... more >>>

The approximate degree of a Boolean function $f$ is the least degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ pointwise to error at most $1/3$. The approximate degree of $f$ is known to be a lower bound on the quantum query complexity of $f$ (Beals et al., FOCS 1998 and ... more >>>

The approximate degree of a Boolean function $f \colon \{-1, 1\}^n \rightarrow \{-1, 1\}$ is the least degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ pointwise to error at most $1/3$. We introduce a generic method for increasing the approximate degree of a given function, while preserving its computability by ... more >>>

In both query and communication complexity, we give separations between the class NISZK, containing those problems with non-interactive statistical zero knowledge proof systems, and the class UPP, containing those problems with randomized algorithms with unbounded error. These results significantly improve on earlier query separations of Vereschagin [Ver95] and Aaronson [Aar12] ... more >>>

Threshold weight, margin complexity, and Majority-of-Threshold circuit size are basic complexity measures of Boolean functions that arise in learning theory, communication complexity, and circuit complexity. Each of these measures might exhibit a chasm at depth three: namely, all polynomial size Boolean circuits of depth two have polynomial complexity under the ... more >>>

The sign-rank of a matrix $A$ with entries in $\{-1, +1\}$ is the least rank of a real matrix $B$ with $A_{ij} \cdot B_{ij} > 0$ for all $i, j$. Razborov and Sherstov (2008) gave the first exponential lower bounds on the sign-rank of a function in AC$^0$, answering an ... more >>>

The approximate degree of a Boolean function $f: \{-1, 1\}^n \to \{-1, 1\}$ is the minimum degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ to within error $1/3$ in the $\ell_\infty$ norm. In an influential result, Aaronson and Shi (J. ACM 2004) proved tight $\tilde{\Omega}(n^{1/3})$ and $\tilde{\Omega}(n^{2/3})$ lower bounds on ... more >>>

We describe a new hardness amplification result for point-wise approximation of Boolean functions by low-degree polynomials. Specifically, for any function $f$ on $N$ bits, define $F(x_1, \dots, x_M) = \text{OMB}(f(x_1), \dots, f(x_M))$ to be the function on $M \cdot N$ bits obtained by block-composing $f$ with a specific DNF known ... more >>>

Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of streaming algorithms for analyzing massive graphs. Unfortunately, many results have been negative, establishing that a wide variety of problems require $\Omega(n^2)$ space to solve. One of the few bright spots has been the development of semi-streaming algorithms for a handful of ... more >>>

In the setting of streaming interactive proofs (SIPs), a client (verifier) needs to compute a given function on a massive stream of data, arriving online, but is unable to store even a small fraction of the data. It outsources the processing to a third party service (prover), but is unwilling ... more >>>

We introduce {\em online interactive proofs} (OIP), which are a hierarchy of communication complexity models that involve both randomness and nondeterminism (thus, they belong to the Arthur--Merlin family), but are {\em online} in the sense that the basic communication flows from Alice to Bob alone. The complexity classes defined by ... more >>>

We establish a generic form of hardness amplification for the approximability of constant-depth Boolean circuits by polynomials. Specifically, we show that if a Boolean circuit cannot be pointwise approximated by low-degree polynomials to within constant error in a certain one-sided sense, then an OR of disjoint copies of that circuit ... more >>>

The $\epsilon$-approximate degree of a Boolean function $f: \{-1, 1\}^n \to \{-1, 1\}$ is the minimum degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ to within $\epsilon$ in the $\ell_\infty$ norm. We prove several lower bounds on this important complexity measure by explicitly constructing solutions to the dual of an ... more >>>

We study the challenging problem of learning decision lists attribute-efficiently, giving both positive and negative results.

Our main positive result is a new tradeoff between the running time and mistake bound for learning length-$k$ decision lists over $n$ Boolean variables. When the allowed running time is relatively high, our new ... more >>>

The central goal of data stream algorithms is to process massive streams of data using sublinear storage space. Motivated by work in the database community on outsourcing database and data stream processing, we ask whether the space usage of such algorithms can be further reduced by enlisting a more powerful ... more >>>

Motivated by the trend to outsource work to commercial cloud computing services, we consider a variation of the streaming paradigm where a streaming algorithm can be assisted by a powerful helper that can provide annotations to the data stream. We extend previous work on such annotation models by considering a ... more >>>

Applications based on outsourcing computation require guarantees to the data owner that the desired computation has been performed correctly by the service provider. Methods based on proof systems can give the data owner the necessary assurance, but previous work does not give a sufficiently scalable and practical solution, requiring a ... more >>>