Negative weights make adversaries stronger

The quantum adversary method is one of the most successful techniques for proving lower bounds on quantum query complexity. It gives optimal lower bounds for many problems, has application to classical complexity in formula size lower bounds, and is versatile with equivalent formulations interms of weight schemes, eigen values, and Kolmogorov complexity. All these formulations rely on the principlethat if an algorithm successfully computes a function then, in particular, itis able to distinguish between inputs which map to different values. We present a stronger version of the adversary method which goes beyond this principle to make explicit use of the stronger condition that the algorithm actually computes the function. This new method, which we call ADV+-, has all the advantages ofthe old: it is a lower bound on bounded-error quantum query complexity, its square is a lower bound on formula size, and it behaves well with respect tofunction composition. Moreover ADV+- is always at least as large as the adversary method ADV, and we show an example of a monotone function forwhich ADV+-(f)=Omega(ADV(f)1.098). We also give examples showing that ADV+- does not face limitations of ADV like the certificate complexity barrier and the property testing barrier.

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