Quantum Computing and Hidden Variables II: The Complexity of Sampling Histories

Abstract

This paper shows that, if we could examine the entire history of a hidden variable, then we could efficiently solve problems that are believed to be intractable even for quantum computers. In particular, under any hidden-variable theory satisfying a reasonable axiom called "indifference to the identity," we could solve the Graph Isomorphism and Approximate Shortest Vector problems in polynomial time, as well as an oracle problem that is known to require quantum exponential time. We could also search an N-item database using O(N^{1/3}) queries, as opposed to O(N^{1/2}) queries with Grover's search algorithm. On the other hand, the N^{1/3} bound is optimal, meaning that we could probably not solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time. We thus obtain the first good example of a model of computation that appears slightly more powerful than the quantum computing model.