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We establish two results regarding the query complexity of bounded-error randomized algorithms.
Bounded-error separation theorem. There exists a total function f : {0,1}^n -> {0,1} whose epsilon-error randomized query complexity satisfies overline{R}_epsilon(f) = Omega(R(f) * log 1/epsilon).
Strong direct sum theorem. For every function f and every k >= 2, the randomized query complexity of computing k instances of f simultaneously satisfies overline{R}_epsilon(f^k) = Theta(k * overline{R}_{epsilon/k}(f)).
As a consequence of our two main results, we obtain an optimal superlinear direct-sum-type theorem for randomized query complexity: there exists a function f for which R(f^k) = Theta(k log k * R(f)). This answers an open question of Drucker (2012). Combining this result with the query-to-communication complexity lifting theorem of Göös, Pitassi, and Watson (2017), this also shows that there is a total function whose public-coin randomized communication complexity satisfies R^{cc}(f^k) = Theta(k log k * R^{cc}(f)), answering a question of Feder, Kushilevitz, Naor, and Nisan (1995).
@InProceedings{blais_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2019.29,
author = {Blais, Eric and Brody, Joshua},
title = {{Optimal Separation and Strong Direct Sum for Randomized Query Complexity}},
booktitle = {34th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2019)},
pages = {29:1--29:17},
series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
ISBN = {978-3-95977-116-0},
ISSN = {1868-8969},
year = {2019},
volume = {137},
editor = {Shpilka, Amir},
publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
address = {Dagstuhl, Germany},
URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2019.29},
URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-108511},
doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2019.29},
annote = {Keywords: Decision trees, query complexity, communication complexity}
}