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REPORTS > AUTHORS > MICHAEL FORBES:
All reports by Author Michael Forbes:

TR21-172 | 1st December 2021
Robert Andrews, Michael Forbes

Ideals, Determinants, and Straightening: Proving and Using Lower Bounds for Polynomial Ideals

We show that any nonzero polynomial in the ideal generated by the $r \times r$ minors of an $n \times n$ matrix $X$ can be used to efficiently approximate the determinant. Specifically, for any nonzero polynomial $f$ in this ideal, we construct a small depth-three $f$-oracle circuit that approximates the ... more >>>


TR18-147 | 19th August 2018
Michael Forbes, Zander Kelley

Pseudorandom Generators for Read-Once Branching Programs, in any Order

A central question in derandomization is whether randomized logspace (RL) equals deterministic logspace (L). To show that RL=L, it suffices to construct explicit pseudorandom generators (PRGs) that fool polynomial-size read-once (oblivious) branching programs (roBPs). Starting with the work of Nisan, pseudorandom generators with seed-length $O(\log^2 n)$ were constructed. Unfortunately, ... more >>>


TR18-036 | 21st February 2018
Michael Forbes, Sumanta Ghosh, Nitin Saxena

Towards blackbox identity testing of log-variate circuits

Derandomization of blackbox identity testing reduces to extremely special circuit models. After a line of work, it is known that focusing on circuits with constant-depth and constantly many variables is enough (Agrawal,Ghosh,Saxena, STOC'18) to get to general hitting-sets and circuit lower bounds. This inspires us to study circuits with few ... more >>>


TR17-163 | 2nd November 2017
Michael Forbes, Amir Shpilka

A PSPACE Construction of a Hitting Set for the Closure of Small Algebraic Circuits

In this paper we study the complexity of constructing a hitting set for $\overline{VP}$, the class of polynomials that can be infinitesimally approximated by polynomials that are computed by polynomial sized algebraic circuits, over the real or complex numbers. Specifically, we show that there is a PSPACE algorithm that given ... more >>>


TR17-057 | 7th April 2017
Alessandro Chiesa, Michael Forbes, Nicholas Spooner

A Zero Knowledge Sumcheck and its Applications

Many seminal results in Interactive Proofs (IPs) use algebraic techniques based on low-degree polynomials, the study of which is pervasive in theoretical computer science. Unfortunately, known methods for endowing such proofs with zero knowledge guarantees do not retain this rich algebraic structure.

In this work, we develop algebraic techniques for ... more >>>


TR17-035 | 23rd February 2017
Manindra Agrawal, Michael Forbes, Sumanta Ghosh, Nitin Saxena

Small hitting-sets for tiny arithmetic circuits or: How to turn bad designs into good

Research in the last decade has shown that to prove lower bounds or to derandomize polynomial identity testing (PIT) for general arithmetic circuits it suffices to solve these questions for restricted circuits. In this work, we study the smallest possibly restricted class of circuits, in particular depth-$4$ circuits, which would ... more >>>


TR17-007 | 19th January 2017
Michael Forbes, Amir Shpilka, Ben Lee Volk

Succinct Hitting Sets and Barriers to Proving Algebraic Circuits Lower Bounds

Revisions: 1

We formalize a framework of algebraically natural lower bounds for algebraic circuits. Just as with the natural proofs notion of Razborov and Rudich for boolean circuit lower bounds, our notion of algebraically natural lower bounds captures nearly all lower bound techniques known. However, unlike the boolean setting, there has been ... more >>>


TR16-156 | 12th October 2016
Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Michael Forbes, Ariel Gabizon, Michael Riabzev, Nicholas Spooner

On Probabilistic Checking in Perfect Zero Knowledge

Revisions: 1

We present the first constructions of *single*-prover proof systems that achieve *perfect* zero knowledge (PZK) for languages beyond NP, under no intractability assumptions:

1. The complexity class #P has PZK proofs in the model of Interactive PCPs (IPCPs) [KR08], where the verifier first receives from the prover a PCP and ... more >>>


TR16-098 | 16th June 2016
Michael Forbes, Amir Shpilka, Iddo Tzameret, Avi Wigderson

Proof Complexity Lower Bounds from Algebraic Circuit Complexity


We give upper and lower bounds on the power of subsystems of the Ideal Proof System (IPS), the algebraic proof system recently proposed by Grochow and Pitassi, where the circuits comprising the proof come from various restricted algebraic circuit classes. This mimics an established research direction in the ... more >>>


TR16-045 | 22nd March 2016
Michael Forbes, Mrinal Kumar, Ramprasad Saptharishi

Functional lower bounds for arithmetic circuits and connections to boolean circuit complexity

We say that a circuit $C$ over a field $F$ functionally computes an $n$-variate polynomial $P \in F[x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n]$ if for every $x \in \{0,1\}^n$ we have that $C(x) = P(x)$. This is in contrast to {syntactically} computing $P$, when $C \equiv P$ as formal polynomials. In this ... more >>>


TR15-184 | 21st November 2015
Matthew Anderson, Michael Forbes, Ramprasad Saptharishi, Amir Shpilka, Ben Lee Volk

Identity Testing and Lower Bounds for Read-$k$ Oblivious Algebraic Branching Programs

Read-$k$ oblivious algebraic branching programs are a natural generalization of the well-studied model of read-once oblivious algebraic branching program (ROABPs).
In this work, we give an exponential lower bound of $\exp(n/k^{O(k)})$ on the width of any read-$k$ oblivious ABP computing some explicit multilinear polynomial $f$ that is computed by a ... more >>>


TR14-162 | 28th November 2014
Michael Forbes, Venkatesan Guruswami

Dimension Expanders via Rank Condensers

An emerging theory of "linear-algebraic pseudorandomness" aims to understand the linear-algebraic analogs of fundamental Boolean pseudorandom objects where the rank of subspaces plays the role of the size of subsets. In this work, we study and highlight the interrelationships between several such algebraic objects such as subspace designs, dimension ... more >>>


TR13-132 | 23rd September 2013
Michael Forbes, Ramprasad Saptharishi, Amir Shpilka

Pseudorandomness for Multilinear Read-Once Algebraic Branching Programs, in any Order

We give deterministic black-box polynomial identity testing algorithms for multilinear read-once oblivious algebraic branching programs (ROABPs), in n^(lg^2 n) time. Further, our algorithm is oblivious to the order of the variables. This is the first sub-exponential time algorithm for this model. Furthermore, our result has no known analogue in the ... more >>>


TR13-033 | 1st March 2013
Michael Forbes, Amir Shpilka

Explicit Noether Normalization for Simultaneous Conjugation via Polynomial Identity Testing

Revisions: 1

Mulmuley recently gave an explicit version of Noether's Normalization lemma for ring of invariants of matrices under simultaneous conjugation, under the conjecture that there are deterministic black-box algorithms for polynomial identity testing (PIT). He argued that this gives evidence that constructing such algorithms for PIT is beyond current techniques. In ... more >>>


TR12-115 | 11th September 2012
Michael Forbes, Amir Shpilka

Quasipolynomial-time Identity Testing of Non-Commutative and Read-Once Oblivious Algebraic Branching Programs

Revisions: 1

We study the problem of obtaining efficient, deterministic, black-box polynomial identity testing (PIT) algorithms for read-once oblivious algebraic branching programs (ABPs). This class has an efficient, deterministic, white-box polynomial identity testing algorithm (due to Raz and Shpilka), but prior to this work had no known such black-box algorithm. Here we ... more >>>


TR11-147 | 2nd November 2011
Michael Forbes, Amir Shpilka

On Identity Testing of Tensors, Low-rank Recovery and Compressed Sensing

We study the problem of obtaining efficient, deterministic, black-box polynomial identity testing algorithms for depth-3 set-multilinear circuits (over arbitrary fields). This class of circuits has an efficient, deterministic, white-box polynomial identity testing algorithm (due to Raz and Shpilka), but has no known such black-box algorithm. We recast this problem as ... more >>>


TR11-110 | 10th August 2011
Alessandro Chiesa, Michael Forbes

Improved Soundness for QMA with Multiple Provers

Revisions: 1

We present three contributions to the understanding of QMA with multiple provers:

1) We give a tight soundness analysis of the protocol of [Blier and Tapp, ICQNM '09], yielding a soundness gap $\Omega(N^{-2})$, which is the best-known soundness gap for two-prover QMA protocols with logarithmic proof size. Maybe ... more >>>


TR11-010 | 1st February 2011
Boris Alexeev, Michael Forbes, Jacob Tsimerman

Tensor Rank: Some Lower and Upper Bounds

The results of Strassen and Raz show that good enough tensor rank lower bounds have implications for algebraic circuit/formula lower bounds.

We explore tensor rank lower and upper bounds, focusing on explicit tensors. For odd d, we construct field-independent explicit 0/1 tensors T:[n]^d->F with rank at least 2n^(floor(d/2))+n-Theta(d log n). ... more >>>




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