We consider Total Functional $\NP$ ($\TFNP$) search problems. Such problems are based on combinatorial principles that guarantee, through locally checkable conditions, that a solution to the problem exists in an exponentially-large domain, and have the property that any solution has a polynomial-size witness that can be verified in polynomial time. ... more >>>
Johnson, Papadimitriou and Yannakakis introduce the class $\PLS$
consisting of optimization problems for which efficient local-
search heuristics exist. We formulate a type-2 problem $\iter$
that characterizes $\PLS$ in style of Beame et al., and prove
a criterion for type-2 problems to be nonreducible to $\iter$.
As a corollary, ...
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We present a new framework for the study of search problems and their
definability in bounded arithmetic. We identify two notions of
complexity of search problems: verification complexity and
computational complexity. Notions of exact solvability and exact
reducibility are developed, and exact $\Sigma^b_i$-definability of
search problems in bounded arithmetic ...
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