In complexity theory, the counting hierarchy is a hierarchy of complexity classes. It is analogous to the polynomial hierarchy, but with NP replaced with PP. It was defined in 1986 by Klaus Wagner. [1] [2]
More precisely, the zero-th level is C0P = P, and the (n+1)-th level is Cn+1P = PPCnP (i.e., PP with oracle Cn). [2] Thus:
The counting hierarchy is contained within PSPACE. [2] By Toda's theorem, the polynomial hierarchy PH is entirely contained in PPP, [3] and therefore in C2P = PPPP.
In computational complexity theory, a branch of computer science, bounded-error probabilistic polynomial time (BPP) is the class of decision problems solvable by a probabilistic Turing machine in polynomial time with an error probability bounded by 1/3 for all instances. BPP is one of the largest practical classes of problems, meaning most problems of interest in BPP have efficient probabilistic algorithms that can be run quickly on real modern machines. BPP also contains P, the class of problems solvable in polynomial time with a deterministic machine, since a deterministic machine is a special case of a probabilistic machine.
In computational complexity theory, bounded-error quantum polynomial time (BQP) is the class of decision problems solvable by a quantum computer in polynomial time, with an error probability of at most 1/3 for all instances. It is the quantum analogue to the complexity class BPP.
In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved by a computer. A computation problem is solvable by mechanical application of mathematical steps, such as an algorithm.
In computational complexity theory, the complexity class #P (pronounced "sharp P" or, sometimes "number P" or "hash P") is the set of the counting problems associated with the decision problems in the set NP. More formally, #P is the class of function problems of the form "compute f(x)", where f is the number of accepting paths of a nondeterministic Turing machine running in polynomial time. Unlike most well-known complexity classes, it is not a class of decision problems but a class of function problems. The most difficult, representative problems of this class are #P-complete.
The #P-complete problems form a complexity class in computational complexity theory. The problems in this complexity class are defined by having the following two properties:
In computational complexity theory, P, also known as PTIME or DTIME(nO(1)), is a fundamental complexity class. It contains all decision problems that can be solved by a deterministic Turing machine using a polynomial amount of computation time, or polynomial time.
In computational complexity theory, the complexity class PH is the union of all complexity classes in the polynomial hierarchy:
In computational complexity theory, the polynomial hierarchy is a hierarchy of complexity classes that generalize the classes NP and co-NP. Each class in the hierarchy is contained within PSPACE. The hierarchy can be defined using oracle machines or alternating Turing machines. It is a resource-bounded counterpart to the arithmetical hierarchy and analytical hierarchy from mathematical logic. The union of the classes in the hierarchy is denoted PH.
In complexity theory, PP is the class of decision problems solvable by a probabilistic Turing machine in polynomial time, with an error probability of less than 1/2 for all instances. The abbreviation PP refers to probabilistic polynomial time. The complexity class was defined by Gill in 1977.
In computational complexity theory, an advice string is an extra input to a Turing machine that is allowed to depend on the length n of the input, but not on the input itself. A decision problem is in the complexity class P/f(n) if there is a polynomial time Turing machine M with the following property: for any n, there is an advice string A of length f(n) such that, for any input x of length n, the machine M correctly decides the problem on the input x, given x and A.
Descriptive complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory and of finite model theory that characterizes complexity classes by the type of logic needed to express the languages in them. For example, PH, the union of all complexity classes in the polynomial hierarchy, is precisely the class of languages expressible by statements of second-order logic. This connection between complexity and the logic of finite structures allows results to be transferred easily from one area to the other, facilitating new proof methods and providing additional evidence that the main complexity classes are somehow "natural" and not tied to the specific abstract machines used to define them.
The graph isomorphism problem is the computational problem of determining whether two finite graphs are isomorphic.
In computational complexity theory, a language B is said to be low for a complexity class A if AB = A; that is, A with an oracle for B is equal to A. Such a statement implies that an abstract machine which solves problems in A achieves no additional power if it is given the ability to solve problems in B at unit cost. In particular, this means that if B is low for A then B is contained in A. Informally, lowness means that problems in B are not only solvable by machines which can solve problems in A, but are “easy to solve”. An A machine can simulate many oracle queries to B without exceeding its resource bounds.
TC0 is a complexity class used in circuit complexity. It is the first class in the hierarchy of TC classes.
In theoretical computer science, circuit complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory in which Boolean functions are classified according to the size or depth of the Boolean circuits that compute them. A related notion is the circuit complexity of a recursive language that is decided by a uniform family of circuits .
ACC0, sometimes called ACC, is a class of computational models and problems defined in circuit complexity, a field of theoretical computer science. The class is defined by augmenting the class AC0 of constant-depth "alternating circuits" with the ability to count; the acronym ACC stands for "AC with counters". Specifically, a problem belongs to ACC0 if it can be solved by polynomial-size, constant-depth circuits of unbounded fan-in gates, including gates that count modulo a fixed integer. ACC0 corresponds to computation in any solvable monoid. The class is very well studied in theoretical computer science because of the algebraic connections and because it is one of the largest concrete computational models for which computational impossibility results, so-called circuit lower bounds, can be proved.
In theoretical computer science, almost wide probabilistic polynomial-time (AWPP) is a complexity class contained in PP defined via GapP functions. The class often arises in the context of quantum computing.
Toda's theorem is a result in computational complexity theory that was proven by Seinosuke Toda in his paper "PP is as Hard as the Polynomial-Time Hierarchy" and was given the 1998 Gödel Prize.
In computational complexity theory of computer science, the structural complexity theory or simply structural complexity is the study of complexity classes, rather than computational complexity of individual problems and algorithms. It involves the research of both internal structures of various complexity classes and the relations between different complexity classes.
In computational complexity theory, SP
2 is a complexity class, intermediate between the first and second levels of the polynomial hierarchy. A language L is in if there exists a polynomial-time predicate P such that