Hamming, Permutations and Automata

2007

Quantum finite automata with mixed states are proved to be super-exponentially more concise rather than quantum finite automata with pure states. It was proved earlier by A.Ambainis and R.Freivalds that quantum finite automata with pure states can have exponentially smaller number of states than deterministic finite automata recognizing the same language. There was a never published "folk theorem" proving that quantum finite automata with mixed states are no more than superexponentially more concise than deterministic finite automata. It was not known whether the super-exponential advantage of quantum automata is really achievable. We prove that there is an infinite sequence of distinct int…