Roughly, the class of decision problems for which the following holds. For all polynomials p(n), there exist GapP functions f and g such that for all inputs x with n=|x|,
Defined in [Li93], where the following was also shown:
The abbreviation APP is also used for Approximable in Probabilistic Polynomial Time, see AxPP.
Contains FewP [Li93] and contains YQP*, YMA*, and YP* [Yir24].
The class of decision problems solvable by an NP machine such that for some polynomial-time computable (i.e. FP) function f,
Defined in [FFK94].
Contains BQP [FR98], WAPP [BGM02], LWPP, and WPP.
Usually called APP. I've renamed it AxPP to distinguish it from the "other" APP.
The class of real-valued functions from {0,1}n to [0,1] that can be approximated within any ε>0 by a probabilistic Turing machine in time polynomial in n and 1/ε.
Defined by [KRC00], who also show the following:
AxPP is recursively enumerable [Jeř07].
The class of decision problems solvable by an NP machine such that
Defined in [Gil77].
PP is closed under union and intersection [BRS91] (this was an open problem for 14 years). More generally, PPP[log] = PP. Even more generally, PP is closed under polynomial-time truth-table reductions, or even k-round reductions for any constant k [FR96].
Contains PNP[log] [BHW89] and QMA (see [MW05]). However, there exists an oracle relative to which PP does not contain Δ2P [Bei94].
BPP [KST+89b] and even BQP [FR98] and YQP* [Yir24] are low for PP: i.e., PPBQP = PP.
APP is PP-low [Li93].
For a random oracle A, PPA is strictly contained in PSPACEA with probability 1 [ABF+94].
For any fixed k, there exists a language in PP that does not have circuits of size nk [Vin04b].
Indeed, there exists a language in PP that does not even have quantum circuits of size nk with quantum advice [Aar06] and [Yir24].
By contrast, there exists an oracle relative to which PP has linear-size circuits [Aar06].
PP can be generalized to the counting hierarchy CH.
Is to YQP as YP* is to YP [AD14].
Is contained in APP, and so is low for PP [Yir24].