This paper studies whether quantum proofs are more powerful than
classical proofs, or in complexity terms, whether QMA=QCMA. We prove
two results about this question. First, we give a "quantum oracle
separation" between QMA and QCMA. More concretely, we show that any
quantum algorithm needs order sqrt(2^n/(m+1)) queries to find ... more >>>

We show that, in the black-box setting, the behavior of quantum polynomial-time (${BQP}$) can be remarkably decoupled from that of classical complexity classes like ${NP}$. Specifically:

-There exists an oracle relative to which ${NP}^{{BQP}}\not \subset {BQP}^{{PH}}$, resolving a 2005 problem of Fortnow. Interpreted another way, we show that ${AC^0}$ circuits ... more >>>

We study a natural complexity measure of Boolean functions known as the (exact) rational degree. For total functions $f$, it is conjectured that $\mathrm{rdeg}(f)$ is polynomially related to $\mathrm{deg}(f)$, where $\mathrm{deg}(f)$ is the Fourier degree. Towards this conjecture, we show that symmetric functions have rational degree at least $\mathrm{deg}(f)/2$ and ... more >>>