Quantum Query-to-Communication Simulation Needs a Logarithmic Overhead

Buhrman, Cleve and Wigderson (STOC’98) observed that for every Boolean function $f:\{-1,1{\}}^n\to \{-1,1\}$ and $\bullet : {-1, 1}^2 \to {-1, 1}$thetwo-partybounded-errorquantumcommunicationcomplexityof$(f \circ \bullet)$is$O(Q(f) \log n)$,where$Q(f)$ is the bounded-error quantum query complexity of $f$. Note that the bounded-error randomized communication complexity of $(f\circ \bullet )$ is bounded by $O(R(f))$, where $R(f)$ denotes the bounded-error randomized query complexity of $f$. Thus, the BCW simulation has an extra $O(\log n)$ factor appearing that is absent in classical simulation. A natural question is if this factor can be avoided. H{\o}yer and de Wolf (STACS’02) showed that for the Set-Disjointness function, this can be reduced to $c^{{\log }^{\ast }n}$ for some constant $c$, and subsequently Aaronson and Ambainis (FOCS’03) showed that this factor can be made a constant. That is, the quantum communication complexity of the Set-Disjointness function (which is ${\mathsf{N}\mathsf{O}\mathsf{R}}_n\circ \wedge$) is $O(Q({\mathsf{N}\mathsf{O}\mathsf{R}}_n))$. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, we show that when $\bullet =\oplus$, then the extra $\log n$ factor in the BCW simulation is unavoidable. In other words, we exhibit a total function $F:\{-1,1{\}}^n\to \{-1,1\}$ such that $Q^{cc}(F \circ \oplus) = \Theta(Q(F) \log n)$. To the best of our knowledge, it was not even known prior to this work whether there existed a total function $F$ and 2-bit function $\bullet$, such that $Q^{cc}(F\circ \bullet )=\omega (Q(F))$.