arXiv subjects

Markus Holzer

Publications and source records attributed to Markus Holzer.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

On Measuring Non-Recursive Trade-Offs

We investigate the phenomenon of non-recursive trade-offs between descriptional systems in an abstract fashion. We aim at categorizing non-recursive trade-offs by bounds on their growth rate, and show how to deduce such bounds in general. We also identify criteria which, in the spirit of abstract language theory, allow us to deduce non-recursive tradeoffs from effective closure properties of language families on the one hand, and differences in the decidability status of basic decision problems on the other. We develop a qualitative classification of non-recursive trade-offs in order to obtain a better understanding of this very fundamental behaviour of descriptional systems.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2009

Multi-Head Finite Automata: Characterizations, Concepts and Open Problems

Multi-head finite automata were introduced in (Rabin, 1964) and (Rosenberg, 1966). Since that time, a vast literature on computational and descriptional complexity issues on multi-head finite automata documenting the importance of these devices has been developed. Although multi-head finite automata are a simple concept, their computational behavior can be already very complex and leads to undecidable or even non-semi-decidable problems on these devices such as, for example, emptiness, finiteness, universality, equivalence, etc. These strong negative results trigger the study of subclasses and alternative characterizations of multi-head finite automata for a better understanding of the nature of non-recursive trade-offs and, thus, the borderline between decidable and undecidable problems. In the present paper, we tour a fragment of this literature.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2002

A common algebraic description for probabilistic and quantum computations

We study the computational complexity of the problem SFT (Sum-free Formula partial Trace): given a tensor formula F over a subsemiring of the complex field (C,+,.) plus a positive integer k, under the restrictions that all inputs are column vectors of L2-norm 1 and norm-preserving square matrices, and that the output matrix is a column vector, decide whether the k-partial trace of $F\dagg{F}$ is superior to 1/2. The k-partial trace of a matrix is the sum of its lowermost k diagonal elements. We also consider the promise version of this problem, where the 1/2 threshold is an isolated cutpoint. We show how to encode a quantum or reversible gate array into a tensor formula which satisfies the above conditions, and vice-versa; we use this to show that the promise version of SFT is complete for the class BPP for formulas over the semiring (Q^+,+,.) of the positive rational numbers, for BQP in the case of formulas defined over the field (Q,+,.), and for P in the case of formulas defined over the Boolean semiring, all under logspace-uniform reducibility. This suggests that the difference between probabilistic and quantum polynomial-time computers may ultimately lie in the possibility, in the latter case, of having destructive interference between computations occuring in parallel.

quant-ph↗