The computational complexity of ball permutations

Abstract

We define several models of computation based on permuting distinguishable particles (which we call balls) and characterize their computational complexity. In the quantum setting, we use the representation theory of the symmetric group to find variants of this model which are intermediate between BPP and DQC1 (the class of problems solvable with one clean qubit) and between DQC1 and BQP. Furthermore, we consider a restricted version of this model based on an exactly solvable scattering problem of particles moving on a line. Despite the simplicity of this model from the perspective of mathematical physics, we show that if we allow intermediate destructive measurements and specific input states, then the model cannot be efficiently simulated classically up to multiplicative error unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. Finally, we define a classical version of this model in which one can probabilistically permute balls. We find this yields a complexity class which is intermediate between L and BPP, and that a nondeterministic version of this model is NP-complete.