Super-Polynomial Quantum Speed-ups for Boolean Evaluation Trees with Hidden Structure

Abstract

We give a quantum algorithm for evaluating a class of boolean formulas (such as NAND trees and 3-majority trees) on a restricted set of inputs. Due to the structure of the allowed inputs, our algorithm can evaluate a depth $n$ tree using $O(n^{2+\log\omega})$ queries, where $\omega$ is independent of $n$ and depends only on the type of subformulas within the tree. We also prove a classical lower bound of $n^{\Omega(\log\log n)}$ queries, thus showing a (small) super-polynomial speed-up.