BQP 2026-10-06
BQP is the class of promise problems decided by uniform polynomial-size quantum circuits with bounded error. Completeness and soundness are conventional; BQP error reduction shows that other fixed separated thresholds give the same class.
BQP consists of promise problems decided by a uniform family of polynomial-size quantum circuits. On input , with polynomially many zero-initialized ancilla qubits, a designated output measurement accepts with probability at least on YES inputs and at most on NO inputs. Uniformity means a classical polynomial-time procedure produces the quantum circuit description from the input length, or equivalently produces the verifier quantum circuit with supplied as input.
For BQP error reduction, run independent copies with freshly initialized registers. If the completeness and soundness thresholds are any constants , accept when the fraction of accepting trials exceeds . A Hoeffding inequality bounds either error by , with repetitions. The threshold need not be a simple majority when both and lie on the same side of .
Choosing sufficiently large gives the usual thresholds, or any other fixed separated thresholds. Even an inverse-polynomial gap can be amplified using polynomially many repetitions. Classical threshold evaluation can be incorporated into the uniform computation. Thus fixed separated acceptance probabilities define the same BQP class. This argument concerns unrestricted BQP quantum circuits and does not assume such amplification is available for restricted stoquastic circuits.