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 >>>

We study the composition question for bounded-error randomized query complexity: Is R(f o g) = Omega(R(f) R(g)) for all Boolean functions f and g? We show that inserting a simple Boolean function h, whose query complexity is only Theta(log R(g)), in between f and g allows us to prove R(f ... more >>>

While exponential separations are known between quantum and randomized communication complexity for partial functions, e.g. Raz [1999], the best known separation between these measures for a total function is quadratic, witnessed by the disjointness function. We give the first super-quadratic separation between quantum and randomized
communication complexity for a ... more >>>

We show a nearly quadratic separation between deterministic communication complexity and the logarithm of the partition number, which is essentially optimal. This improves upon a recent power 1.5 separation of Göös, Pitassi, and Watson (FOCS 2015). In query complexity, we establish a nearly quadratic separation between deterministic (and even randomized) ... more >>>

We show a power 2.5 separation between bounded-error randomized and quantum query complexity for a total Boolean function, refuting the widely believed conjecture that the best such separation could only be quadratic (from Grover's algorithm). We also present a total function with a power 4 separation between quantum query complexity ... more >>>