When Does Low-Bit Quantization Preserve the Decisions of Vector Search?

Abstract

Low-bit quantization can achieve high recall on some vector representations and fail sharply on others, while average distortion and global rank correlation do not explain the difference. We study quantized vector search at the level of the comparisons consumed by ranking and graph-pruning algorithms. Our first result is a distribution-free decomposition: the probability that a comparison flips is bounded by the probability mass of exact margins near zero plus the tail probability of the calibrated residual. We then account for dependence between residuals that share a query or graph node, and derive covariance-aware second-moment identities and tail bounds under a joint MGF proxy. For a frozen candidate permutation, we prove a deterministic coupling theorem for Vamana neighbour selection: the approximate replay returns the exact neighbour list exactly when all candidate-level pruning actions agree on the frozen exact states. We connect these results to representation geometry through an exact Gaussian oracle, establish a strict correlation gain from a deterministic magnitude bit in an aligned bilinear model, and give a rare-contamination construction showing why marginal Gaussian diagnostics do not imply the required residual tails. When analytical assumptions are unavailable, a held-out block certificate bounds the selective failure risk of a frozen quantized rule. Across learned, classical, and synthetic embeddings, standardized exact margins predict held-out ranking and pruning flip rates substantially better than global rank correlation. The framework applies to coordinate binary codes, RaBitQ, Lucene BBQ, and product quantizers through a common decision interface.