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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.2

Oracle Separations for the Quantum-Classical Polynomial Hierarchy

Authors: Avantika Agarwal and Shalev Ben{-}David

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract

We study the quantum-classical polynomial hierarchy, QCPH, which is the class of languages solvable by a constant number of alternating classical quantifiers followed by a quantum verifier. Our main result is that QCPH is infinite relative to a random oracle (previously, this was not even known relative to any oracle). We further prove that higher levels of PH are not contained in lower levels of QCPH relative to a random oracle; this is a strengthening of the somewhat recent result that PH is infinite relative to a random oracle (Rossman, Servedio, and Tan 2016). The oracle separation requires lower bounding a certain type of low-depth alternating circuit with some quantum gates. To establish this, we give a new switching lemma for quantum algorithms which may be of independent interest. Our lemma says that for any d, if we apply a random restriction to a function f with quantum query complexity Q(f) ≤ n^{1/3}, the restricted function becomes exponentially close (in terms of d) to a depth-d decision tree. Our switching lemma works even in a "worst-case" sense, in that only the indices to be restricted are random; the values they are restricted to are chosen adversarially. Moreover, the switching lemma also works for polynomial degree in place of quantum query complexity.

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Avantika Agarwal and Shalev Ben-David. Oracle Separations for the Quantum-Classical Polynomial Hierarchy. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 2:1-2:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{agarwal_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.2,
  author =	{Agarwal, Avantika and Ben\{-\}David, Shalev},
  title =	{{Oracle Separations for the Quantum-Classical Polynomial Hierarchy}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252893},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Switching Lemma, Polynomial Hierarchy, Approximate Degree, Random Oracles, Query Complexity, Quantum Computing}
}

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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.7

Quantum Polynomial Hierarchies: Karp-Lipton, Error Reduction, and Lower Bounds

Authors: Avantika Agarwal, Sevag Gharibian, Venkata Koppula, and Dorian Rudolph

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 306, 49th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2024)

Abstract

The Polynomial-Time Hierarchy (PH) is a staple of classical complexity theory, with applications spanning randomized computation to circuit lower bounds to "quantum advantage" analyses for near-term quantum computers. Quantumly, however, despite the fact that at least four definitions of quantum PH exist, it has been challenging to prove analogues for these of even basic facts from PH. This work studies three quantum-verifier based generalizations of PH, two of which are from [Gharibian, Santha, Sikora, Sundaram, Yirka, 2022] and use classical strings (QCPH) and quantum mixed states (QPH) as proofs, and one of which is new to this work, utilizing quantum pure states (QPHpure) as proofs. We first resolve several open problems from [GSSSY22], including a collapse theorem and a Karp-Lipton theorem for QCPH. Then, for our new class QPHpure, we show one-sided error reduction QPHpure, as well as the first bounds relating these quantum variants of PH, namely QCPH ⊆ QPHpure ⊆ EXP^PP.

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Avantika Agarwal, Sevag Gharibian, Venkata Koppula, and Dorian Rudolph. Quantum Polynomial Hierarchies: Karp-Lipton, Error Reduction, and Lower Bounds. In 49th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 306, pp. 7:1-7:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{agarwal_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.7,
  author =	{Agarwal, Avantika and Gharibian, Sevag and Koppula, Venkata and Rudolph, Dorian},
  title =	{{Quantum Polynomial Hierarchies: Karp-Lipton, Error Reduction, and Lower Bounds}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2024)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-335-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{306},
  editor =	{Kr\'{a}lovi\v{c}, Rastislav and Ku\v{c}era, Anton{\'\i}n},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-205632},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantum complexity, polynomial hierarchy}
}

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Documents authored by Agarwal, Avantika

Oracle Separations for the Quantum-Classical Polynomial Hierarchy

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Quantum Polynomial Hierarchies: Karp-Lipton, Error Reduction, and Lower Bounds

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