Symmetry and quantum query-to-communication simulation

Buhrman, Cleve and Wigderson (STOC'98) showed that for every Boolean function f : {-1,1}^n to {-1,1} and G in {AND_2, XOR_2}, the bounded-error quantum communication complexity of the composed function f o G equals O(Q(f) log n), where Q(f) denotes the bounded-error quantum query complexity of f. This is in contrast with the classical setting, where it is easy to show that R^{cc}(f o G) < 2 R(f), where R^{cc} and R denote bounded-error communication and query complexity, respectively. Chakraborty et al. (CCC'20) exhibited a total function for which the log n overhead in the BCW simulation is required. We improve upon their result in several ways.

We show that the log n overhead is not required when f is symmetric, generalizing a result of Aaronson and Ambainis for the Set-Disjointness function (Theory of Computing'05). This upper bound assumes a shared entangled state, though for most symmetric functions the assumed number of entangled qubits is less than the communication and hence could be part of the communication. To prove this, we design an efficient distributed version of noisy amplitude amplification that allows us to prove the result when f is the OR function.

In view of our first result, one may ask whether the log n overhead in the BCW simulation can be avoided even when f is transitive. We give a strong negative answer by showing that the log n overhead is still necessary for some transitive functions even when we allow the quantum communication protocol an error probability that can be arbitrarily close to 1/2.

We also give, among other things, a general recipe to construct functions for which the log n overhead is required in the BCW simulation in the bounded-error communication model, even if the parties are allowed to share an arbitrary prior entangled state for free.