  Although quantum algorithms realizing an exponential time speed-up over the
best known classical algorithms exist, no quantum algorithm is known performing
computation using less space resources than classical algorithms. In this
paper, we study, for the first time explicitly, space-bounded quantum
algorithms for computational problems where the input is given not as a whole,
but bit by bit. We show that there exist such problems that a quantum computer
can solve using exponentially less work space than a classical computer. More
precisely, we introduce a very natural and simple model of a space-bounded
quantum online machine and prove an exponential separation of classical and
quantum online space complexity, in the bounded-error setting and for a total
language. The language we consider is inspired by a communication problem (the
set intersection function) that Buhrman, Cleve and Wigderson used to show an
almost quadratic separation of quantum and classical bounded-error
communication complexity. We prove that, in the framework of online space
complexity, the separation becomes exponential.
