We show that hitting sets can derandomize any BPP-algorithm.
This gives a positive answer to a fundamental open question in
probabilistic algorithms. More precisely, we present a polynomial
time deterministic algorithm which uses any given hitting set
to approximate the fractions of 1's in the ... more >>>

We present the first worst-case hardness conditions
on the circuit complexity of EXP functions which are
sufficient to obtain P=BPP. In particular, we show that
from such hardness conditions it is possible to construct
quick Hitting Sets Generators with logarithmic prize.
... more >>>

We show how to simulate any BPP algorithm in polynomial time
using a weak random source of min-entropy $r^{\gamma}$
for any $\gamma >0$.
This follows from a more general result about {\em sampling\/}
with weak random sources.
Our result matches an information-theoretic lower bound ... more >>>

We show that the complexity class LogFew is contained
in NL $\cap$ SPL. Previously, this was known only to
hold in the nonuniform setting.

In this work we use random walks on expanders in order to
relax the properties of hitting sets required for partially
derandomizing one-side error algorithms. Building on a well-known
probability amplification technique [AKS87,CW89,IZ89], we use
random walks on expander graphs of subexponential (in the
random bit complexity) size so as ... more >>>

We introduce "resource-bounded betting games", and propose
a generalization of Lutz's resource-bounded measure in which the choice
of next string to bet on is fully adaptive. Lutz's martingales are
equivalent to betting games constrained to bet on strings in lexicographic
order. We show that if strong pseudo-random number generators exist,
more >>>

Impagliazzo and Wigderson have recently shown that
if there exists a decision problem solvable in time $2^{O(n)}$
and having circuit complexity $2^{\Omega(n)}$
(for all but finitely many $n$) then $\p=\bpp$. This result
is a culmination of a series of works showing
connections between the existence of hard predicates
and ... more >>>

Andreev et al.~\cite{ABCR97} give constructions of Boolean
functions (computable by polynomial-size circuits) that require large
read-once branching program (1-b.p.'s): a function in P that requires
1-b.p. of size at least $2^{n-\polylog(n)}$, a function in quasipolynomial
time that requires 1-b.p. of size at least $2^{n-O(\log n)}$, and a
function in LINSPACE ... more >>>

We study the complexity of the circuit minimization problem:
given the truth table of a Boolean function f and a parameter s, decide
whether f can be realized by a Boolean circuit of size at most s. We argue
why this problem is unlikely to be in P (or ... more >>>

A hitting-set generator is a deterministic
algorithm which generates a set of strings that intersects
every dense set recognizable by a small circuit.
A polynomial time hitting-set generator readily implies $RP=P$.
Andreev \etal\/ (ICALP'96, and JACM 1998)
showed that if polynomial-time hitting-set
generator in fact implies ... more >>>

We consider a class, denoted APP, of real-valued functions
f:{0,1}^n\rightarrow [0,1] such that f can be approximated, to
within any epsilon>0, by a probabilistic Turing machine running in
time poly(n,1/epsilon). We argue that APP can be viewed as a
generalization of BPP, and show that APP contains a natural
complete ... more >>>

We design a $0.795$ approximation algorithm for the Max-Bisection problem
restricted to regular graphs. In the case of three regular graphs our
results imply an approximation ratio of $0.834$.

In the theory of pseudorandomness, potential (uniform) observers
are modeled as probabilistic polynomial-time machines.
In fact many of the central results in
that theory are proven via probabilistic polynomial-time reductions.
In this paper we show that analogous deterministic reductions
are unlikely to hold. We conclude that randomness ... more >>>

We survey recent algorithms for the propositional
satisfiability problem, in particular algorithms
that have the best current worst-case upper bounds
on their complexity. We also discuss some related
issues: the derandomization of the algorithm of
Paturi, Pudlak, Saks and Zane, the Valiant-Vazirani
Lemma, and random walk ... more >>>

This survey focuses on the recent (after 1998) developments in
the area of derandomization, with the emphasis on the derandomization of
time-bounded randomized complexity classes.

We consider sets of strings with high Kolmogorov complexity, mainly
in resource-bounded settings but also in the traditional
recursion-theoretic sense. We present efficient reductions, showing
that these sets are hard and complete for various complexity classes.

In particular, in addition to the usual Kolmogorov complexity measure
K, ... more >>>

We consider uniform assumptions for derandomization. We provide
intuitive evidence that BPP can be simulated non-trivially in
deterministic time by showing that (1) P \not \subseteq i.o.i.PLOYLOGSPACE
implies BPP \subseteq SUBEXP (2) P \not \subseteq SUBPSPACE implies BPP
= P. These results extend and complement earlier work of ... more >>>

For every $\epsilon>0$,
we present a {\em deterministic}\/ log-space algorithm
that correctly decides undirected graph connectivity
on all but at most $2^{n^\epsilon}$ of the $n$-vertex graphs.
The same holds for every problem in Symmetric Log-space (i.e., $\SL$).

Making no assumptions (and in particular not assuming the ... more >>>

We say that a distribution over $\{0,1\}^n$
is almost $k$-wise independent
if its restriction to every $k$ coordinates results in a
distribution that is close to the uniform distribution.
A natural question regarding almost $k$-wise independent
distributions is how close they are to some $k$-wise
independent distribution. We show ... more >>>

We show that derandomizing Polynomial Identity Testing is,
essentially, equivalent to proving circuit lower bounds for
NEXP. More precisely, we prove that if one can test in polynomial
time (or, even, nondeterministic subexponential time, infinitely
often) whether a given arithmetic circuit over integers computes an
identically zero polynomial, then either ... more >>>

We describe a deterministic algorithm that, for constant k,
given a k-DNF or k-CNF formula f and a parameter e, runs in time
linear in the size of f and polynomial in 1/e and returns an
estimate of the fraction of satisfying assignments for f up to ... more >>>

We prove that BPP has Lutz's p-dimension at most 1/2 unless BPP equals EXP.
Next we show that BPP has Lutz's p-dimension zero unless BPP equals EXP
on infinitely many input lengths.
We also prove that BPP has measure zero in the smaller complexity
class ... more >>>

The Group Isomorphism problem consists in deciding whether two input
groups $G_1$ and $G_2$ given by their multiplication tables are
isomorphic. We first give a 2-round Arthur-Merlin protocol for the
Group Non-Isomorphism problem such that on input groups $(G_1,G_2)$
of size $n$, Arthur uses ... more >>>

We study computational procedures that use both randomness and nondeterminism. Examples are Arthur-Merlin games and approximate counting and sampling of NP-witnesses. The goal of this paper is to derandomize such procedures under the weakest possible assumptions.

Our main technical contribution allows one to ``boost'' a given hardness assumption. One special ... more >>>

We present a deterministic, log-space algorithm that solves
st-connectivity in undirected graphs. The previous bound on the
space complexity of undirected st-connectivity was
log^{4/3}() obtained by Armoni, Ta-Shma, Wigderson and
Zhou. As undirected st-connectivity is
complete for the class of problems solvable by symmetric,
non-deterministic, log-space computations (the class SL), ... more >>>

Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ be a finite field and $f(x) \in \mathbb{F}_q(x)$ be a rational function over $\mathbb{F}_q$.
The decision problem {\bf PermFunction} consists of deciding whether $f(x)$ induces a permutation on
the elements of $\mathbb{F}_q$. That is, we want to decide whether the corresponding map
$f : \mathbb{F}_q ... more >>>

We survey known results regarding locally testable codes
and locally testable proofs (known as PCPs),
with emphasis on the length of these constructs.
Locally testability refers to approximately testing
large objects based on a very small number of probes,
each retrieving a single bit in the ... more >>>

The notion of promise problems was introduced and initially studied
by Even, Selman and Yacobi
(Information and Control, Vol.~61, pages 159-173, 1984).
In this article we survey some of the applications that this
notion has found in the twenty years that elapsed.
These include the notion ... more >>>

Motivated by Reingold's recent deterministic log-space algorithm for Undirected S-T Connectivity (ECCC TR 04-94), we revisit the general RL vs. L question, obtaining the following results.

1. We exhibit a new complete problem for RL: S-T Connectivity restricted to directed graphs for which the random walk is promised to have ... more >>>

The PPSZ algorithm presented by Paturi, Pudlak, Saks, and Zane in 1998 has the nice feature that the only satisfying solution of a uniquely satisfiable $3$-SAT formulas can be found in expected running time at most $\Oc(1.3071^n).$ Using the technique of limited independence, we can derandomize this algorithm yielding $\Oc(1.3071^n)$ ... more >>>

We show that RL is contained in L/O(n), i.e., any language computable
in randomized logarithmic space can be computed in deterministic
logarithmic space with a linear amount of non-uniform advice. To
prove our result we show how to take an ultra-low space walk on
the Gabber-Galil expander graph.

We exhibit an explicitly computable `pseudorandom' generator stretching $l$ bits into $m(l) = l^{\Omega(\log l)}$ bits that look random to constant-depth circuits of size $m(l)$ with $\log m(l)$ arbitrary symmetric gates (e.g. PARITY, MAJORITY). This improves on a generator by Luby, Velickovic and Wigderson (ISTCS '93) that achieves the same ... more >>>

We introduce a new measure notion on small complexity classes (called F-measure), based on martingale families,
that get rid of some drawbacks of previous measure notions:
martingale families can make money on all strings,
and yield random sequences with an equal frequency of 0's and 1's.
As applications to F-measure,
more >>>

An $(n,k)$-bit-fixing source is a distribution $X$ over $\B^n$ such that
there is a subset of $k$ variables in $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ which are uniformly
distributed and independent of each other, and the remaining $n-k$ variables
are fixed. A deterministic bit-fixing source extractor is a function $E:\B^n
\ar \B^m$ which on ... more >>>

We use derandomization to show that sequences of positive $\pspace$-dimension -- in fact, even positive $\Delta^\p_k$-dimension
for suitable $k$ -- have, for many purposes, the full power of random oracles. For example, we show that, if $S$ is any binary sequence whose $\Delta^p_3$-dimension is positive, then $\BPP\subseteq \P^S$ and, moreover, ... more >>>

Constructions of k-wise almost independent permutations have been receiving a growing amount of attention in recent years. However, unlike the case of k-wise independent functions, the size of previously constructed families of such permutations is far from optimal.

In this paper we describe a method for reducing the size of ... more >>>

We construct a randomness-efficient averaging sampler that is computable by uniform constant-depth circuits with parity gates (i.e., in AC^0[mod 2]). Our sampler matches the parameters achieved by random walks on constant-degree expander graphs, allowing us to apply a variety expander-based techniques within NC^1. For example, we obtain the following results:

Ahlswede and Winter introduced a Chernoff bound for matrix-valued random variables, which is a non-trivial generalization of the usual Chernoff bound for real-valued random variables. We present an efficient derandomization of their bound using the method of pessimistic estimators (see Raghavan). As a consequence, we derandomize a construction of Alon ... more >>>

It is well known that $\R^N$ has subspaces of dimension
proportional to $N$ on which the $\ell_1$ norm is equivalent to the
$\ell_2$ norm; however, no explicit constructions are known.
Extending earlier work by Artstein--Avidan and Milman, we prove that
such a subspace can be generated using $O(N)$ random bits.

A t-design for quantum states is a finite set of quantum states with the property of simulating the Haar-measure on quantum states w.r.t. any test that uses at most t copies of a state. We give efficient constructions for approximate quantum t-designs for arbitrary t.

We then show that an ... more >>>

We present a deterministic logspace algorithm for solving s-t connectivity on directed graphs if (i) we are given a stationary distribution for random walk on the graph and (ii) the random walk which starts at the source vertex $s$ has polynomial mixing time. This result generalizes the recent deterministic logspace ... more >>>

Motivated by a recent study of Zimand (22nd CCC, 2007),
we consider the average-case complexity of property testing
(focusing, for clarity, on testing properties of Boolean strings).
We make two observations:

1) In the context of average-case analysis with respect to
the uniform distribution (on all strings of ... more >>>

We study multiplayer games in which the participants have access to
only limited randomness. This constrains both the algorithms used to
compute equilibria (they should use little or no randomness) as well
as the mixed strategies that the participants are capable of playing
(these should be sparse). We frame algorithmic ... more >>>

In 1998, Impagliazzo and Wigderson proved a hardness vs. randomness tradeoff for BPP in the {\em uniform setting}, which was subsequently extended to give optimal tradeoffs for the full range of possible hardness assumptions by Trevisan and Vadhan (in a slightly weaker setting). In 2003, Gutfreund, Shaltiel and Ta-Shma proved ... more >>>

We present a new approach to constructing pseudorandom generators that fool low-degree polynomials over finite fields, based on the Gowers norm. Using this approach, we obtain the following main constructions of explicitly computable generators $G : \F^s \to \F^n$ that fool polynomials over a prime field $\F$:
\begin{enumerate}
\item a ... more >>>

In this paper we show that lower bounds for bounded depth arithmetic circuits imply derandomization of polynomial identity testing for bounded depth arithmetic circuits. More formally, if there exists an explicit polynomial f(x_1,...,x_m) that cannot be computed by a depth d arithmetic circuit of small size then there exists ... more >>>

In this paper we study the problem of explicitly constructing a
{\em dimension expander} raised by \cite{BISW}: Let $\mathbb{F}^n$
be the $n$ dimensional linear space over the field $\mathbb{F}$.
Find a small (ideally constant) set of linear transformations from
$\F^n$ to itself $\{A_i\}_{i \in I}$ such that for every linear
more >>>

We consider (uniform) reductions from computing a function f to the task of distinguishing the output of some pseudorandom generator G from uniform. Impagliazzo and Wigderson (FOCS `98, JCSS `01) and Trevisan and Vadhan (CCC `02, CC `07) exhibited such reductions for every function f in PSPACE. Moreover, their reductions ... more >>>

We give a randomized polynomial-time identity test for
noncommutative circuits of polynomial degree based on the isolation
lemma. Using this result, we show that derandomizing the isolation
lemma implies noncommutative circuit size lower bounds. More
precisely, we consider two restricted versions of the isolation
lemma and show that derandomizing each ... more >>>

We show that proving exponential lower bounds on depth four arithmetic
circuits imply exponential lower bounds for unrestricted depth arithmetic
circuits. In other words, for exponential sized circuits additional depth
beyond four does not help.

We then show that a complete black-box derandomization of Identity Testing problem for depth four ... more >>>

The Nearest Codeword Problem (NCP) is a basic algorithmic question in the theory of error-correcting codes. Given a point v in an n-dimensional space over F_2 and a linear subspace L in F_2^n of dimension k NCP asks to find a point l in L that minimizes the (Hamming) distance ... more >>>

Color Coding is an algorithmic technique for deciding efficiently
if a given input graph contains a path of a given length (or
another small subgraph of constant tree-width). Applications of the
method in computational biology motivate the study of similar
algorithms for counting the number of copies of a ... more >>>

We study depth three arithmetic circuits with bounded top fanin. We give the first deterministic polynomial time blackbox identity test for depth three circuits with bounded top fanin over the field of rational numbers, thus resolving a question posed by Klivans and Spielman (STOC 2001).

Our main technical result is ... more >>>

We define a hierarchy of complexity classes that lie between P and RP, yielding a new way of quantifying partial progress towards the derandomization of RP. A standard approach in derandomization is to reduce the number of random bits an algorithm uses. We instead focus on a model of computation ... more >>>

Let $\F$ be the field of $q$ elements. An \emph{\afsext{n}{k}} is a mapping $D:\F^n\ar\B$
such that for any $k$-dimensional affine subspace $X\subseteq \F^n$, $D(x)$ is an almost unbiased
bit when $x$ is chosen uniformly from $X$.
Loosely speaking, the problem of explicitly constructing affine extractors gets harder as $q$ gets ... more >>>

We show several unconditional lower bounds for exponential time classes
against polynomial time classes with advice, including:
\begin{enumerate}
\item For any constant $c$, $\NEXP \not \subseteq \P^{\NP[n^c]}/n^c$
\item For any constant $c$, $\MAEXP \not \subseteq \MA/n^c$
\item $\BPEXP \not \subseteq \BPP/n^{o(1)}$
\end{enumerate}

It was previously unknown even whether $\NEXP \subseteq ... more >>>

Bogdanov and Viola (FOCS 2007) constructed a pseudorandom
generator that fools degree $k$ polynomials over $\F_2$ for an arbitrary
constant $k$. We show that such generators can also be used to fool branching programs of width 2 and polynomial length that read $k$ bits of inputs at a
time. This ... more >>>

We give the first sub-exponential time deterministic polynomial
identity testing algorithm for depth-$4$ multilinear circuits with
a small top fan-in. More accurately, our algorithm works for
depth-$4$ circuits with a plus gate at the top (also known as
$\Spsp$ circuits) and has a running time of
$\exp(\poly(\log(n),\log(s),k))$ where $n$ is ... more >>>

We construct a small set of explicit linear transformations mapping $R^n$ to $R^{O(\log n)}$, such that the $L_2$ norm of
any vector in $R^n$ is distorted by at most $1\pm o(1)$ in at
least a fraction of $1 - o(1)$ of the transformations in the set.
Albeit the tradeoff between ... more >>>

The main purpose of this work is to formally define monotone expanders and motivate their study with (known and new) connections to other graphs and to several computational and pseudorandomness problems. In particular we explain how monotone expanders of constant degree lead to:
(1) Constant degree dimension expanders in finite ... more >>>

We show that if Arthur-Merlin protocols can be derandomized, then there is a Boolean function computable in deterministic exponential-time with access to an NP oracle, that cannot be computed by Boolean circuits of exponential size. More formally, if $\mathrm{prAM}\subseteq \mathrm{P}^{\mathrm{NP}}$ then there is a Boolean function in $\mathrm{E}^{\mathrm{NP}}$ that requires ... more >>>

In this paper we study algebraic branching programs (ABPs) with restrictions on the order and the number of reads of variables in the program. Given a permutation $\pi$ of $n$ variables, for a $\pi$-ordered ABP ($\pi$-OABP), for any directed path $p$ from source to sink, a variable can appear at ... more >>>

{\em Dispersers} and {\em extractors} for affine sources of dimension $d$ in $\mathbb F_p^n$ --- where $\mathbb F_p$ denotes the finite field of prime size $p$ --- are functions $f: \mathbb F_p^n \rightarrow \mathbb F_p$ that behave pseudorandomly when their domain is restricted to any particular affine space $S \subseteq ... more >>>

A recurring theme in the literature on derandomization is that probabilistic
algorithms can be simulated quickly by deterministic algorithms, if one can obtain *impressive* (i.e., superpolynomial, or even nearly-exponential) circuit size lower bounds for certain problems. In contrast to what is
needed for derandomization, existing lower bounds seem rather pathetic ... more >>>

An algebraic branching program (ABP) is given by a directed acyclic graph with source and sink vertices $s$ and $t$, respectively, and where edges are labeled by variables or field constants. An ABP computes the sum of weights of all directed paths from $s$ to $t$, where the weight of ... more >>>

The relationship between deterministic and probabilistic computations is one of the central issues in complexity theory. This problem can be tackled by constructing polynomial time hitting set generators which, however, belongs to the hardest problems in computer science even for severely restricted computational models. In our work, we consider read-once ... more >>>

Recent work of [Dasgupta-Kumar-Sarl\'{o}s, STOC 2010] gave a sparse Johnson-Lindenstrauss transform and left as a main open question whether their construction could be efficiently derandomized. We answer their question affirmatively by giving an alternative proof of their result requiring only bounded independence hash functions. Furthermore, the sparsity bound obtained in ... more >>>

We present an alternate proof of the result by Kabanets and Impagliazzo that derandomizing polynomial identity testing implies circuit lower bounds. Our proof is simpler, scales better, and yields a somewhat stronger result than the original argument.

For two polynomials $f \in \mathbb{F}[x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n, y]$ and $p \in \mathbb{F}[x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n]$, we say that $p$ is a root of $f$, if $f(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n, p) \equiv 0$. We study the relation between the arithmetic circuit sizes of $f$ and $p$ for general circuits ... more >>>

Let C(x) and K(x) denote plain and prefix Kolmogorov complexity, respectively, and let R_C and R_K denote the sets of strings that are ``random'' according to these measures; both R_K and R_C are undecidable. Earlier work has shown that every set in NEXP is in NP relative to both R_K ... more >>>

Let C be a depth-3 circuit with n variables, degree d and top fanin k (called sps(k,d,n) circuits) over base field F.
It is a major open problem to design a deterministic polynomial time blackbox algorithm
that tests if C is identically zero.
Klivans & Spielman (STOC 2001) observed ... more >>>

We present an alternate proof of the recent result by Gutfreund and Kawachi that derandomizing Arthur-Merlin games into $P^{NP}$ implies linear-exponential circuit lower bounds for $E^{NP}$. Our proof is simpler and yields stronger results. In particular, consider the promise-$AM$ problem of distinguishing between the case where a given Boolean circuit ... more >>>

We present a polynomial-time deterministic algorithm for testing whether constant-read multilinear arithmetic formulae are identically zero. In such a formula each variable occurs only a constant number of times and each subformula computes a multilinear polynomial. Our algorithm runs in time $s^{O(1)}\cdot n^{k^{O(k)}}$, where $s$ denotes the size of the ... more >>>

We study the problem of identity testing for multilinear $\Spsp(k)$ circuits, i.e. multilinear depth-$4$ circuits with fan-in $k$ at the top $+$ gate. We give the first polynomial-time deterministic
identity testing algorithm for such circuits. Our results also hold in the black-box setting.

The running time of our algorithm is ... more >>>

A family of permutations in $S_n$ is $k$-wise independent if a uniform permutation chosen from the family maps any distinct $k$ elements to any distinct $k$ elements equally likely. Efficient constructions of $k$-wise independent permutations are known for $k=2$ and $k=3$, but are unknown for $k \ge 4$. In fact, ... more >>>

We present a deterministic operator on tree codes -- we call tree code product -- that allows one to deterministically combine two tree codes into a larger tree code. Moreover, if the original tree codes are efficiently encodable and decodable, then so is their product. This allows us to give ... more >>>

The Valiant-Vazirani Isolation Lemma [TCS, vol. 47, pp. 85--93, 1986] provides an efficient procedure for isolating a satisfying assignment of a given satisfiable circuit: given a Boolean circuit $C$ on $n$ input variables, the procedure outputs a new circuit $C'$ on the same $n$ input variables with the property that ... more >>>

In several settings derandomization is known to follow from circuit lower bounds that themselves are equivalent to the existence of pseudorandom generators. This leaves open the question whether derandomization implies the circuit lower bounds that are known to imply it, i.e., whether the ability to derandomize in *any* way implies ... more >>>

We consider a model of teaching in which the learners are consistent and have bounded state, but are otherwise arbitrary. The teacher is non-interactive and ``massively open'': the teacher broadcasts a sequence of examples of an arbitrary target concept, intended for every possible on-line learning algorithm to learn from. We ... more >>>

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 >>>

We consider Reed-Solomon (RS) codes whose evaluation points belong to a subfield, and give a linear-algebraic list decoding algorithm that can correct a fraction of errors approaching the code distance, while pinning down the candidate messages to a well-structured affine space of dimension a constant factor smaller than the code ... more >>>

We consider the problem of constructing explicit Hitting sets for Combinatorial Shapes, a class of statistical tests first studied by Gopalan, Meka, Reingold, and Zuckerman (STOC 2011). These generalize many well-studied classes of tests, including symmetric functions and combinatorial rectangles. Generalizing results of Linial, Luby, Saks, and Zuckerman (Combinatorica 1997) ... more >>>

Around 2002, Leonid Gurvits gave a striking randomized algorithm to approximate the permanent of an n×n matrix A. The algorithm runs in O(n^2/?^2) time, and approximates Per(A) to within ±?||A||^n additive error. A major advantage of Gurvits's algorithm is that it works for arbitrary matrices, not just for nonnegative matrices. ... more >>>

We show that if one can solve 3SUM on a set of size $n$
in time $n^{1+\epsilon}$ then one can list $t$ triangles in a
graph with $m$ edges in time $\tilde
O(m^{1+\epsilon}t^{1/3+\epsilon'})$ for any $\epsilon' > 0$. This is a
reversal of Patrascu's reduction from 3SUM to
listing triangles ... more >>>

We design two deterministic polynomial time algorithms for variants of a problem introduced by Edmonds in 1967: determine the rank of a matrix $M$ whose entries are homogeneous linear polynomials over the integers. Given a linear subspace $\mathcal{B}$ of the $n \times n$ matrices over some field $\mathbb{F}$, we consider ... more >>>

The Minimum Distance Problem (MDP), i.e., the computational task of evaluating (exactly or approximately) the minimum distance of a linear code, is a well known NP-hard problem in coding theory. A key element in essentially all known proofs that MDP is NP-hard is the construction of a combinatorial object that ... more >>>

We develop new techniques to incorporate the recently proposed ``short code" (a low-degree version of the long code) into the construction and analysis of PCPs in the classical ``Label Cover + Fourier Analysis'' framework. As a result, we obtain more size-efficient PCPs that yield improved hardness results for approximating CSPs ... more >>>

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 >>>

{\em Does derandomization of probabilistic algorithms become easier when the number of ``bad'' random inputs is extremely small?}

In relation to the above question, we put forward the following {\em quantified derandomization challenge}:
For a class of circuits $\cal C$ (e.g., P/poly or $AC^0,AC^0[2]$) and a bounding function $B:\N\to\N$ (e.g., ... more >>>

Two polynomials $f, g \in F[x_1, \ldots, x_n]$ are called shift-equivalent if there exists a vector $(a_1, \ldots, a_n) \in {F}^n$ such that the polynomial identity $f(x_1+a_1, \ldots, x_n+a_n) \equiv g(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$ holds. Our main result is a new randomized algorithm that tests whether two given polynomials are shift equivalent. Our ... more >>>

We construct a PCP for NTIME(2$^n$) with constant
soundness, $2^n \poly(n)$ proof length, and $\poly(n)$
queries where the verifier's computation is simple: the
queries are a projection of the input randomness, and the
computation on the prover's answers is a 3CNF. The
previous upper bound for these two computations was
more >>>

Locally testable codes (LTCs) of constant distance that allow the tester to make a linear number of queries have become the focus of attention recently, due to their elegant connections to hardness of approximation. In particular, the binary Reed-Muller code of block length $N$ and distance $d$ is known to ... more >>>

In this paper we give subexponential size hitting sets for bounded depth multilinear arithmetic formulas. Using the known relation between black-box PIT and lower bounds we obtain lower bounds for these models.

For depth-3 multilinear formulas, of size $\exp(n^\delta)$, we give a hitting set of size $\exp(\tilde{O}(n^{2/3 + 2\delta/3}))$. ... more >>>

The perfect matching problem has a randomized $NC$ algorithm, using the celebrated Isolation Lemma of Mulmuley, Vazirani and Vazirani. The Isolation Lemma states that giving a random weight assignment to the edges of a graph, ensures that it has a unique minimum weight perfect matching, with a good probability. We ... more >>>

We present the first efficient deterministic algorithm for factoring sparse polynomials that split into multilinear factors.
Our result makes partial progress towards the resolution of the classical question posed by von zur Gathen and Kaltofen in \cite{GathenKaltofen85} to devise an efficient deterministic algorithm for factoring (general) sparse polynomials.
We achieve ... more >>>

We develop a new notion called {\it $(1-\epsilon)$-tester for a
set $M$ of functions} $f:A\to C$. A $(1-\epsilon)$-tester
for $M$ maps each element $a\in A$ to a finite number of
elements $B_a=\{b_1,\ldots,b_t\}\subset B$ in a smaller
sub-domain $B\subset A$ where for every $f\in M$ if
$f(a)\not=0$ then $f(b)\not=0$ for at ... more >>>

In Arithmetic Circuit Complexity the standard operations are $\{+,\times\}$.
Yet, in some scenarios exponentiation gates are considered as well (see e.g. \cite{BshoutyBshouty98,ASSS12,Kayal12,KSS14}).
In this paper we study the question of efficiently evaluating a polynomial given an oracle access to its power.
That is, beyond an exponentiation gate. As ... more >>>

For every fixed constant $\alpha > 0$, we design an algorithm for computing the $k$-sparse Walsh-Hadamard transform of an $N$-dimensional vector $x \in \mathbb{R}^N$ in time $k^{1+\alpha} (\log N)^{O(1)}$. Specifically, the algorithm is given query access to $x$ and computes a $k$-sparse $\tilde{x} \in \mathbb{R}^N$ satisfying $\|\tilde{x} - \hat{x}\|_1 \leq ... more >>>

We present techniques for decreasing the error probability of randomized algorithms and for converting randomized algorithms to deterministic (non-uniform) algorithms. Unlike most existing techniques that involve repetition of the randomized algorithm, and hence a slowdown, our techniques produce algorithms with a similar run-time to the original randomized algorithms.

The ... more >>>

We show that the bipartite perfect matching problem is in quasi-NC$^2$. That is, it has uniform circuits of quasi-polynomial size and $O(\log^2 n)$ depth. Previously, only an exponential upper bound was known on the size of such circuits with poly-logarithmic depth.

We obtain our result by an almost complete ... more >>>

In this note, we show how to transform a large class of erroneous cryptographic schemes into perfectly correct ones. The transformation works for schemes that are correct on every input with probability noticeably larger than half, and are secure under parallel repetition. We assume the existence of one-way functions ... more >>>

We consider the following problem. A deterministic algorithm tries to find a string in an unknown set $S\subseteq\{0,1\}^n$ that is guaranteed to have large density (e.g., $|S|\ge2^{n-1}$). However, the only information that the algorithm can obtain about $S$ is estimates of the density of $S$ in adaptively chosen subsets of ... more >>>

Derandomization of Chernoff bound with union bound is already proven in many papers.
We here give another explicit version of it that obtains a construction of size
that is arbitrary close to the probabilistic nonconstructive size.

We apply this to give a new simple polynomial time constructions of
almost $k$-wise ... more >>>

We consider depth 2 unbounded fan-in circuits with symmetric and linear threshold gates. We present a deterministic algorithm that, given such a circuit with $n$ variables and $m$ gates, counts the number of satisfying assignments in time $2^{n-\Omega\left(\left(\frac{n}{\sqrt{m} \cdot \poly(\log n)}\right)^a\right)}$ for some constant $a>0$. Our algorithm runs in time ... more >>>

Given two matroids on the same ground set, the matroid intersection problem asks to find a common independent set of maximum size. We show that the linear matroid intersection problem is in quasi-NC$^2$. That is, it has uniform circuits of quasi-polynomial size $n^{O(\log n)}$, and $O(\log^2 n)$ depth. This generalizes ... more >>>

Goldreich and Wigderson (STOC 2014) initiated a study of quantified derandomization, which is a relaxed derandomization problem: For a circuit class $\mathcal{C}$ and a parameter $B=B(n)$, the problem is to decide whether a circuit $C\in\mathcal{C}$ rejects all of its inputs, or accepts all but $B(n)$ of its inputs.

In ... more >>>

The class TFNP is the search analog of NP with the additional guarantee that any instance has a solution. TFNP has attracted extensive attention due to its natural syntactic subclasses that capture the computational complexity of important search problems from algorithmic game theory, combinatorial optimization and computational topology. Thus, one ... more >>>

We study the possibility of deterministic and randomness-efficient isolation in space-bounded models of computation: Can one efficiently reduce instances of computational problems to equivalent instances that have at most one solution? We present results for the NL-complete problem of reachability on digraphs, and for the LogCFL-complete problem of certifying acceptance ... more >>>

The composition of two Boolean functions $f:\left\{0,1\right\}^{m}\to\left\{0,1\right\}$, $g:\left\{0,1\right\}^{n}\to\left\{0,1\right\}$
is the function $f \diamond g$ that takes as inputs $m$ strings $x_{1},\ldots,x_{m}\in\left\{0,1\right\}^{n}$
and computes
\[
(f \diamond g)(x_{1},\ldots,x_{m})=f\left(g(x_{1}),\ldots,g(x_{m})\right).
\]
This operation has been used several times for amplifying different
hardness measures of $f$ and $g$. This comes at a cost: the ... more >>>

We prove that if every problem in $NP$ has $n^k$-size circuits for a fixed constant $k$, then for every $NP$-verifier and every yes-instance $x$ of length $n$ for that verifier, the verifier's search space has an $n^{O(k^3)}$-size witness circuit: a witness for $x$ that can be encoded with a circuit ... more >>>

We show that any proof that $promise\textrm{-}\mathcal{BPP}=promise\textrm{-}\mathcal{P}$ necessitates proving circuit lower bounds that almost yield that $\mathcal{P}\ne\mathcal{NP}$. More accurately, we show that if $promise\textrm{-}\mathcal{BPP}=promise\textrm{-}\mathcal{P}$, then for essentially any super-constant function $f(n)=\omega(1)$ it holds that $NTIME[n^{f(n)}]\not\subseteq\mathcal{P}/\mathrm{poly}$. The conclusion of the foregoing conditional statement cannot be improved (to conclude that $\mathcal{NP}\not\subseteq\mathcal{P}/\mathrm{poly}$) without ... more >>>

We consider probabilistic circuits working over the real numbers, and using arbitrary semialgebraic functions of bounded description complexity as gates. We show that such circuits can be simulated by deterministic circuits with an only polynomial blowup in size. An algorithmic consequence is that randomization cannot substantially speed up dynamic programming. ... more >>>

We show that popular hardness conjectures about problems from the field of fine-grained complexity theory imply structural results for resource-based complexity classes. Namely, we show that if either k-Orthogonal Vectors or k-CLIQUE requires $n^{\epsilon k}$ time, for some constant $\epsilon > 1/2$, to count (note that these conjectures are significantly ... more >>>

A polynomial threshold function (PTF) is defined as the sign of a polynomial $p\colon\bool^n\to\mathbb{R}$. A PTF circuit is a Boolean circuit whose gates are PTFs. We study the problems of exact and (promise) approximate counting for PTF circuits of constant depth.

Satisfiability (#SAT). We give the first zero-error randomized algorithm ... more >>>

We continue the study of pseudo-deterministic algorithms initiated by Gat and Goldwasser
[GG11]. A pseudo-deterministic algorithm is a probabilistic algorithm which produces a fixed
output with high probability. We explore pseudo-determinism in the settings of learning and ap-
proximation. Our goal is to simulate known randomized algorithms in these settings ... more >>>

Scaling problems have a rich and diverse history, and thereby have found numerous
applications in several fields of science and engineering. For instance, the matrix scaling problem
has had applications ranging from theoretical computer science to telephone forecasting,
economics, statistics, optimization, among many other fields. Recently, a generalization of matrix
more >>>

The canonical problem that gives an exponential separation between deterministic and randomized communication complexity in the classical two-party communication model is `Equality'. In this work, we show that even allowing access to an `Equality' oracle, deterministic protocols remain exponentially weaker than randomized ones. More precisely, we exhibit a total function ... more >>>

The derandomization of MA, the probabilistic version of NP, is a long standing open question. In this work, we connect this problem to a variant of another major problem: the quantum PCP conjecture. Our connection goes through the surprising quantum characterization of MA by Bravyi and Terhal. They proved the ... more >>>

A hitting-set generator (HSG) is a polynomial map $Gen:\mathbb{F}^k \to \mathbb{F}^n$ such that for all $n$-variate polynomials $Q$ of small enough circuit size and degree, if $Q$ is non-zero, then $Q\circ Gen$ is non-zero. In this paper, we give a new construction of such a HSG assuming that we have ... more >>>

Relations and Equivalences Between Circuit Lower Bounds and Karp-Lipton Theorems

A frontier open problem in circuit complexity is to prove P^NP is not in SIZE[n^k] for all k; this is a necessary intermediate step towards NP is not in P/poly. Previously, for several classes containing P^NP, including NP^NP, ZPP^NP, and ... more >>>

Existing proofs that deduce $\mathbf{BPP}=\mathbf{P}$ from circuit lower bounds convert randomized algorithms into deterministic algorithms with a large polynomial slowdown. We convert randomized algorithms into deterministic ones with little slowdown. Specifically, assuming exponential lower bounds against nondeterministic circuits, we convert any randomized algorithm over inputs of length $n$ running in ... more >>>

We study the following question: Is it easier to construct a hitting-set generator for polynomials $p:\mathbb{F}^n\rightarrow\mathbb{F}$ of degree $d$ if we are guaranteed that the polynomial vanishes on at most an $\epsilon>0$ fraction of its inputs? We will specifically be interested in tiny values of $\epsilon\ll d/|\mathbb{F}|$. This question was ... more >>>

We prove an easy-witness lemma ($\ewl$) for unambiguous non-deterministic verfiers. We show that if $\utime(t)\subset\mathcal{C}$, then for every $L\in\utime(t)$, for every $\utime(t)$ verifier $V$ for $L$, and for every $x\in L$, there is a certificate $y$ satisfing $V(x,y)=1$, that can be encoded as a truth-table of a $\mathcal{C}$ circuit. Our ... more >>>

We prove that for all constants a, NQP = NTIME[n^{polylog(n)}] cannot be (1/2 + 2^{-log^a n})-approximated by 2^{log^a n}-size ACC^0 of THR circuits (ACC^0 circuits with a bottom layer of THR gates). Previously, it was even open whether E^NP can be (1/2+1/sqrt{n})-approximated by AC^0[2] circuits. As a straightforward application, ... more >>>

We give a deterministic, nearly logarithmic-space algorithm for mild spectral sparsification of undirected graphs. Given a weighted, undirected graph $G$ on $n$ vertices described by a binary string of length $N$, an integer $k\leq \log n$ and an error parameter $\varepsilon > 0$, our algorithm runs in space $\tilde{O}(k\log (N\cdot ... more >>>

Blackbox polynomial identity testing (PIT) affords 'extreme variable-bootstrapping' (Agrawal et al, STOC'18; PNAS'19; Guo et al, FOCS'19). This motivates us to study log-variate read-once oblivious algebraic branching programs (ROABP). We restrict width of ROABP to a constant and study the more general sum-of-ROABPs model. We give the first poly($s$)-time blackbox ... more >>>

Despite the interest in the complexity class MA, the randomized analog of NP, there is just a couple of known natural (promise-)MA-complete problems, the first due to Bravyi and Terhal (SIAM Journal of Computing 2009) and the second due to Bravyi (Quantum Information and Computation 2015). Surprisingly, both problems are ... more >>>

We unconditionally prove there exists a promise problem in promise ZSUBEXP that cannot be solved in promise RP.
The proof technique builds upon Kabanets' easy witness method [Kab01] as implemented by Impagliazzo et. al [IKW02], with a separate diagonalization carried out on each of the two alternatives in the ... more >>>

In a seminal work, Nisan (Combinatorica'92) constructed a pseudorandom generator for length $n$ and width $w$ read-once branching programs with seed length $O(\log n\cdot \log(nw)+\log n\cdot\log(1/\varepsilon))$ and error $\varepsilon$. It remains a central question to reduce the seed length to $O(\log (nw/\varepsilon))$, which would prove that $\mathbf{BPL}=\mathbf{L}$. However, there has ... more >>>

Extending the classical ``hardness-to-randomness'' line-of-works, Doron et al. (FOCS 2020) recently proved that derandomization with near-quadratic time overhead is possible, under the assumption that there exists a function in $\mathcal{DTIME}[2^n]$ that cannot be computed by randomized SVN circuits of size $2^{(1-\epsilon)\cdot n}$ for a small $\epsilon$.

In this work we ... more >>>

In certain complexity-theoretic settings, it is notoriously difficult to prove complexity separations which hold almost everywhere, i.e., for all but finitely many input lengths. For example, a classical open question is whether $\mathrm{NEXP} \subset \mathrm{i.o.-}\mathrm{NP}$; that is, it is open whether nondeterministic exponential time computations can be simulated on infinitely ... more >>>

In a recent work, O'Donnell, Servedio and Tan (STOC 2019) gave explicit pseudorandom generators (PRGs) for arbitrary $m$-facet polytopes in $n$ variables with seed length poly-logarithmic in $m,n$, concluding a sequence of works in the last decade, that was started by Diakonikolas, Gopalan, Jaiswal, Servedio, Viola (SICOMP 2010) and Meka, ... more >>>

We propose a new approach to the hardness-to-randomness framework and to the promise-BPP=promise-P conjecture. Classical results rely on non-uniform hardness assumptions to construct derandomization algorithms that work in the worst-case, or rely on uniform hardness assumptions to construct derandomization algorithms that work only in the average-case. In both types of ... more >>>

The focus of this survey is the question of *quantified derandomization*, which was introduced by Goldreich and Wigderson (2014): Does derandomization of probabilistic algorithms become easier if we only want to derandomize algorithms that err with extremely small probability? How small does this probability need to be in order for ... more >>>

The hardness vs.~randomness paradigm aims to explicitly construct pseudorandom generators $G:\{0,1\}^r \to \{0,1\}^m$ that fool circuits of size $m$, assuming the existence of explicit hard functions. A ``high-end PRG'' with seed length $r=O(\log m)$ (implying BPP=P) was achieved in a seminal work of Impagliazzo and Wigderson (STOC 1997), assuming \textsc{the ... more >>>

This paper aims to derandomize the following problems in the smoothed analysis of Spielman and Teng. Learn Disjunctive Normal Form (DNF), invert Fourier Transforms (FT), and verify small circuits' unsatisfiability. Learning algorithms must predict a future observation from the only $m$ i.i.d. samples of a fixed but unknown joint-distribution $P(G(x),y)$ ... more >>>

Random walks in expander graphs and their various derandomizations (e.g., replacement/zigzag product) are invaluable tools from pseudorandomness. Recently, Ta-Shma used s-wide replacement walks in his breakthrough construction of a binary linear code almost matching the Gilbert-Varshamov bound (STOC 2017). Ta-Shma’s original analysis was entirely linear algebraic, and subsequent developments have ... more >>>

We give a deterministic space-efficient algorithm for approximating powers of stochastic matrices. On input a $w \times w$ stochastic matrix $A$, our algorithm approximates $A^{n}$ in space $\widetilde{O}(\log n + \sqrt{\log n}\cdot \log w)$ to within high accuracy. This improves upon the seminal work by Saks and Zhou (FOCS'95), that ... more >>>

We present the first truly explicit constructions of \emph{non-malleable codes} against tampering by bounded polynomial size circuits. These objects imply unproven circuit lower bounds and our construction is secure provided E requires exponential size nondeterministic circuits, an assumption from the derandomization literature.

Prior works on NMC ... more >>>

We give PRG for depth-$d$, size-$m$ $\mathrm{AC}^0$ circuits with seed length $O(\log^{d-1}(m)\log(m/\varepsilon)\log\log(m))$. Our PRG improves on previous work [TX13, ST19, Kel21] from various aspects. It has optimal dependence on $\frac{1}{\varepsilon}$ and is only one “$\log\log(m)$” away from the lower bound barrier. For the case of $d=2$, the seed length tightly ... more >>>

What is the actual cost of derandomization? And can we get it for free? These questions were recently raised by Doron et. al (FOCS 2020) and have been attracting considerable interest. In this work we extend the study of these questions to the setting of *derandomizing interactive proofs systems*.

The Merlin-Arthur class of languages MA is included into Arthur-Merlin class AM, and into PP. For a standard transformation of a given MA protocol with Arthur's message (= random string) of length $a$ and Merlin's message of length $m$ to a PP machine, the latter needs $O(ma)$ random bits. The ... more >>>

In a recent result of Bhargava, Saraf and Volkovich [FOCS’18; JACM’20], the first sparsity bound for constant individual degree polynomials was shown. In particular, it was shown that any factor of a polynomial with at most $s$ terms and individual degree bounded by $d$ can itself have at most $s^{O(d^2\log ... more >>>

A central open problem in complexity theory concerns the question of whether all efficient randomized algorithms can be simulated by efficient deterministic algorithms. We consider this problem in the context of promise problems (i.e,. the $\prBPP$ v.s. $\prP$ problem) and show that for all sufficiently large constants $c$, the following ... more >>>

The leading technical approach in uniform hardness-to-randomness in the last two decades faced several well-known barriers that caused results to rely on overly strong hardness assumptions, and yet still yield suboptimal conclusions.

In this work we show uniform hardness-to-randomness results that *simultaneously break through all of the known barriers*. Specifically, ... more >>>

Is randomness ever necessary for space-efficient computation? It is commonly conjectured that L = BPL, meaning that halting decision algorithms can always be derandomized without increasing their space complexity by more than a constant factor. In the past few years (say, from 2017 to 2022), there has been some exciting ... more >>>

The main motivation for studying linear data structures and circuits is the intuition that non-linear advice cannot help in computing a linear operator. Jukna and Schnitger formalized this as a conjecture which states that all circuits computing a linear operator can be ``linearized," with only a constant size blow-up. We ... more >>>

We construct explicit deterministic extractors for polynomial images of varieties, that is, distributions sampled by applying a low-degree polynomial map $f : \mathbb{F}_q^r \to \mathbb{F}_q^n$ to an element sampled uniformly at random from a $k$-dimensional variety $V \subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^r$. This class of sources generalizes both polynomial sources, studied by Dvir, ... more >>>

Computational problems on point lattices play a central role in many areas of computer science including integer programming, coding theory, cryptanalysis, and especially the design of secure cryptosystems. In this survey, we present known results and open questions related to the complexity of the most important of these problems, the ... more >>>

In this paper, we obtain several new results on lower bounds and derandomization for ACC^0 circuits (constant-depth circuits consisting of AND/OR/MOD_m gates for a fixed constant m, a frontier class in circuit complexity):

1. We prove that any polynomial-time Merlin-Arthur proof system with an ACC^0 verifier (denoted by ... more >>>

Relativization is one of the most fundamental concepts in complexity theory, which explains the difficulty of resolving major open problems. In this paper, we propose a weaker notion of relativization called *bounded relativization*. For a complexity class $C$, we say that a statement is *$C$-relativizing* if the statement holds relative ... more >>>

We establish an equivalence between two algorithmic tasks: *derandomization*, the deterministic simulation of probabilistic algorithms; and *refutation*, the deterministic construction of inputs on which a given probabilistic algorithm fails to compute a certain hard function.

We prove that refuting low-space probabilistic streaming algorithms that try to compute functions $f\in\mathcal{FP}$ ... more >>>

An arithmetic formula is an arithmetic circuit where each gate has fan-out one. An \emph{arithmetic read-once formula} (ROF in short) is an arithmetic formula where each input variable labels at most one leaf. In this paper we present several efficient blackbox \emph{polynomial identity testing} (PIT) algorithms for some classes of ... more >>>

A weighted pseudorandom generator (WPRG) is a generalization of a pseudorandom generator (PRG) in which, roughly speaking, probabilities are replaced with weights that are permitted to be positive or negative. We present new explicit constructions of WPRGs that fool certain classes of standard-order read-once branching programs. In particular, our WPRGs ... more >>>

In a recent work, Chen, Hoza, Lyu, Tal and Wu (FOCS 2023) showed an improved error reduction framework for the derandomization of regular read-once branching programs (ROBPs). Their result is based on a clever modification to the inverse Laplacian perspective of space-bounded derandomization, which was originally introduced by Ahmadinejad, Kelner, ... more >>>

In this work, we initiate the study of the space complexity of the Polynomial Identity Testing problem (PIT).
First, we observe that the majority of the existing (time-)efficient ``blackbox'' PIT algorithms already give rise to space-efficient ``whitebox'' algorithms for the respective classes of arithmetic formulas via a space-efficient ... more >>>

In the catalytic logspace ($CL$) model of (Buhrman et.~al.~STOC 2013), we are given a small work tape, and a larger catalytic tape that has an arbitrary initial configuration. We may edit this tape, but it must be exactly restored to its initial configuration at the completion of the computation. This ... more >>>

Time efficient decoding algorithms for error correcting codes often require linear space. However, locally decodable codes yield more efficient randomized decoders that run in time $n^{1+o(1)}$ and space $n^{o(1)}$. In this work we focus on deterministic decoding.
Gronemeier showed that any non-adaptive deterministic decoder for a good code running ... more >>>

We introduce and study the following natural total search problem, which we call the {\it heavy element avoidance} (Heavy Avoid) problem: for a distribution on $N$ bits specified by a Boolean circuit sampling it, and for some parameter $\delta(N) \ge 1/\poly(N)$ fixed in advance, output an $N$-bit string that has ... more >>>

We study uniquely decodable codes and list decodable codes in the high-noise regime, specifically codes that are uniquely decodable from $\frac{1-\varepsilon}{2}$ fraction of errors and list decodable from $1-\varepsilon$ fraction of errors. We present several improved explicit constructions that achieve near-optimal rates, as well as efficient or even linear-time decoding ... more >>>

This work makes two distinct yet related contributions. The first contribution is a new information-theoretic model, the query-with-sketch model, and tools to show lower bounds within it. The second contribution is conceptual, technically builds on the first contribution, and is a barrier in the derandomization of randomized logarithmic space (BPL). ... more >>>