Phase Information in Quantum Oracle Computing

Abstract

Computational devices may be supplied with external sources of information (oracles). Quantum oracles may transmit phase information which is available to a quantum computer but not a classical computer. One consequence of this observation is that there is an oracle which is of no assistance to a classical computer but which allows a quantum computer to solve undecidable problems. Thus useful relativized separations between quantum and classical complexity classes must exclude the transmission of phase information from oracle to computer.