Error-Bounded Probabilistic Computations between MA and AM

We introduce the probabilistic complexity class SBP. This class emerges from BPP by keeping the promise of a probability gap but decreasing the probability limit to exponentially small values. We locate SBP in the polynomial-time hierarchy, more precisely, between MA and AM. We provide evidence that SBP does not coincide with these and other known complexity classes. We construct an oracle relative to which SBP is not contained in \({\mathrm{\Sigma^P_{2}}}\).

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