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We give a comprehensive characterization of the computational power of shallow quantum circuits combined with classical computation. Specifically, for classes of search problems, we show that the following statements hold, relative to a random oracle: (a) $\mathsf{BPP}^{\mathsf{QNC}^{\mathsf{BPP}}} \neq \mathsf{BQP}$. This refutes Jozsa's conjecture [QIP 05] in the random oracle model. As a result, this gives the first instantiatable separation between the classes by replacing the oracle with a cryptographic hash function, yielding a resolution to one of Aaronson's ten semi-grand challenges in quantum computing. (b) $\mathsf{BPP}^{\mathsf{QNC}} \nsubseteq \mathsf{QNC}^{\mathsf{BPP}}$ and $\mathsf{QNC}^{\mathsf{BPP}} \nsubseteq \mathsf{BPP}^{\mathsf{QNC}}$. This shows that there is a subtle interplay between classical computation and shallow quantum computation. In fact, for the second separation, we establish that, for some problems, the ability to perform adaptive measurements in a single shallow quantum circuit, is more useful than the ability to perform polynomially many shallow quantum circuits without adaptive measurements. (c) There exists a 2-message proof of quantum depth protocol. Such a protocol allows a classical verifier to efficiently certify that a prover must be performing a computation of some minimum quantum depth. Our proof of quantum depth can be instantiated using the recent proof of quantumness construction by Yamakawa and Zhandry [STOC 22]., arXiv

An important theoretical problem in the study of quantum computation, that is also practically relevant in the context of near-term quantum devices, is to understand the computational power of hybrid models, that combine poly-time classical computation with short-depth quantum computation. Here, we consider two such models: CQ_d which captures the scenario of a polynomial-time classical algorithm that queries a d-depth quantum computer many times; and QC_d which is more analogous to measurement-based quantum computation and captures the scenario of a d-depth quantum computer with the ability to change the sequence of gates being applied depending on measurement outcomes processed by a classical computation. Chia, Chung & Lai (STOC 2020) and Coudron & Menda (STOC 2020) showed that these models (with d=log^O(1) (n)) are strictly weaker than BQP (the class of problems solvable by poly-time quantum computation), relative to an oracle, disproving a conjecture of Jozsa in the relativised world. We show that, despite the similarities between CQ_d and QC_d, the two models are incomparable, i.e. CQ_d $\nsubseteq$ QC_d and QC_d $\nsubseteq$ CQ_d relative to an oracle. In other words, there exist problems that one model can solve but not the other and vice versa. We do this by considering new oracle problems that capture the distinctions between the two models and by introducing the notion of an intrinsically stochastic oracle, an oracle whose responses are inherently randomised, which is used for our second result. While we leave showing the second separation relative to a standard oracle as an open problem, we believe the notion of stochastic oracles could be of independent interest for studying complexity classes which have resisted separation in the standard oracle model. Our constructions also yield simpler oracle separations between the hybrid models and BQP, compared to earlier works., arXiv

An important theoretical problem in the study of quantum computation, that is also practically relevant in the context of near-term quantum devices, is to understand the computational power of hybrid models, that combine poly-time classical computation with short-depth quantum computation. Here, we consider two such models: CQ_d which captures the scenario of a polynomial-time classical algorithm that queries a d-depth quantum computer many times; and QC_d which is more analogous to measurement-based quantum computation and captures the scenario of a d-depth quantum computer with the ability to change the sequence of gates being applied depending on measurement outcomes processed by a classical computation. Chia, Chung & Lai (STOC 2020) and Coudron & Menda (STOC 2020) showed that these models (with d=log^O(1) (n)) are strictly weaker than BQP (the class of problems solvable by poly-time quantum computation), relative to an oracle, disproving a conjecture of Jozsa in the relativised world. We show that, despite the similarities between CQ_d and QC_d, the two models are incomparable, i.e. CQ_d $\nsubseteq$ QC_d and QC_d $\nsubseteq$ CQ_d relative to an oracle. In other words, there exist problems that one model can solve but not the other and vice versa. We do this by considering new oracle problems that capture the distinctions between the two models and by introducing the notion of an intrinsically stochastic oracle, an oracle whose responses are inherently randomised, which is used for our second result. While we leave showing the second separation relative to a standard oracle as an open problem, we believe the notion of stochastic oracles could be of independent interest for studying complexity classes which have resisted separation in the standard oracle model. Our constructions also yield simpler oracle separations between the hybrid models and BQP, compared to earlier works., 47 pages, 5 figures

Certifying individual quantum devices with minimal assumptions is crucial for the development of quantum technologies. Here, we investigate how to leverage single-system contextuality to realize self-testing. We develop a robust self-testing protocol based on the simplest contextuality witness for the simplest contextual quantum system, the Klyachko-Can-Binicio\u{g}lu-Shumovsky (KCBS) inequality for the qutrit. We establish a lower bound on the fidelity of the state and the measurements (to an ideal configuration) as a function of the value of the witness under a pragmatic assumption on the measurements we call the KCBS orthogonality condition. We apply the method in an experiment with randomly chosen measurements on a single trapped $^{40}{\rm Ca}^+$ and near-perfect detection efficiency. The observed statistics allow us to self-test the system and provide the first experimental demonstration of quantum self-testing of a single system. Further, we quantify and report that deviations from our assumptions are minimal, an aspect previously overlooked by contextuality experiments., Comment: 19+6 pages, 2+1 figures

Contextuality is one way of capturing the non-classicality of quantum theory. The contextual nature of a theory is often witnessed via the violation of non-contextuality inequalities---certain linear inequalities involving probabilities of measurement events. Using the exclusivity graph approach (one of the two main graph theoretic approaches for studying contextuality), it was shown [PRA 88, 032104 (2013); Annals of mathematics, 51-299 (2006)] that a necessary and sufficient condition for witnessing contextuality is the presence of an odd number of events (greater than three) which are either cyclically or anti-cyclically exclusive. Thus, the non-contextuality inequalities whose underlying exclusivity structure is as stated, either cyclic or anti-cyclic, are fundamental to quantum theory. We show that there is a unique non-contextuality inequality for each non-trivial cycle and anti-cycle. In addition to the foundational interest, we expect this to aid the understanding of contextuality as a resource to quantum computing and its applications to local self-testing., Comment: 17 pages (5 main, 12 appendix), 4 figures; In v2, generalised the result, upgraded the title, clarified the relation to prior work and rewrote the narrative