We consider the problem of estimating the average of a huge set of values.
That is,
given oracle access to an arbitrary function $f:\{0,1\}^n\mapsto[0,1]$,
we need to estimate $2^{-n} \sum_{x\in\{0,1\}^n} f(x)$
upto an additive error of $\epsilon$.
We are allowed to employ a randomized algorithm which may ... more >>>

This paper initiates the study of deterministic amplification of space
bounded probabilistic algorithms. The straightforward implementations of
known amplification methods cannot be used for such algorithms, since they
consume too much space. We present a new implementation of the
Ajtai-Koml\'{o}s-Szemer\'{e}di method, that enables to amplify an $S$ ... more >>>

We give explicit constructions of extractors which work for a source of
any min-entropy on strings of length n. These extractors can extract any
constant fraction of the min-entropy using O(log^2 n) additional random
bits, and can extract all the min-entropy using O(log^3 n) additional
random bits. Both of these ... more >>>

We suggest a candidate one-way function using combinatorial
constructs such as expander graphs. These graphs are used to
determine a sequence of small overlapping subsets of input bits,
to which a hard-wired random predicate is applied.
Thus, the function is extremely easy to evaluate:
all that is needed ... more >>>

The main contribution of this work is a new type of graph product, which we call the zig-zag
product. Taking a product of a large graph with a small graph, the resulting graph inherits
(roughly) its size from the large one, its degree from the small one, and ... more >>>

We study the compression of polynomially samplable sources. In particular, we give efficient prefix-free compression and decompression algorithms for three classes of such sources (whose support is a subset of {0,1}^n).

1. We show how to compress sources X samplable by logspace machines to expected length H(X)+O(1).

Our next ... 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 >>>

Optimal dispersers have better dependence on the error than
optimal extractors. In this paper we give explicit disperser
constructions that beat the best possible extractors in some
parameters. Our constructions are not strong, but we show that
having such explicit strong constructions implies a solution
to the Ramsey graph construction ... more >>>

We introduce a "derandomized" analogue of graph squaring. This
operation increases the connectivity of the graph (as measured by the
second eigenvalue) almost as well as squaring the graph does, yet only
increases the degree of the graph by a constant factor, instead of
squaring the degree.

One application of ... more >>>

We highlight a common theme in four relatively recent works
that establish remarkable results by an iterative approach.
Starting from a trivial construct,
each of these works applies an ingeniously designed
sequence of iterations that yields the desired result,
which is highly non-trivial. Furthermore, in each iteration,
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:

We introduce the notion of a stable instance for a discrete
optimization problem, and argue that in many practical situations
only sufficiently stable instances are of interest. The question
then arises whether stable instances of NP--hard problems are
easier to solve. In particular, whether there exist algorithms
that solve correctly ... more >>>

Using $\epsilon$-bias spaces over F_2 , we show that the Remote Point Problem (RPP), introduced by Alon et al [APY09], has an $NC^2$ algorithm (achieving the same parameters as [APY09]). We study a generalization of the Remote Point Problem to groups: we replace F_n by G^n for an arbitrary fixed ... 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 >>>

Contemplating the recently announced 1-local expanders of Viola and Wigderson (ECCC, TR16-129, 2016), one may observe that weaker constructs are well know. For example, one may easily obtain a 4-regular $N$-vertex graph with spectral gap that is $\Omega(1/\log^2 N)$, and similarly a $O(1)$-regular $N$-vertex graph with spectral gap $1/\tildeO(\log N)$.
more >>>

It is well-known that there is equivalence between ordered resolution and ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDD) [LNNW95]; i.e., for any unsatisfiable formula ?, the size of the smallest ordered resolution refutation of ? equal to the size of the smallest OBDD for the canonical search problem corresponding to ?. But ... more >>>

We show that there is a sequence of explicit multilinear polynomials $P_n(x_1,\ldots,x_n)\in \mathbb{R}[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$ with non-negative coefficients that lies in monotone VNP such that any monotone algebraic circuit for $P_n$ must have size $\exp(\Omega(n)).$ This builds on (and strengthens) a result of Yehudayoff (2018) who showed a lower bound of $\exp(\tilde{\Omega}(\sqrt{n})).$

A graph $G$ is called {\em self-ordered}\/ (a.k.a asymmetric) if the identity permutation is its only automorphism.
Equivalently, there is a unique isomorphism from $G$ to any graph that is isomorphic to $G$.
We say that $G=(V,E)$ is {\em robustly self-ordered}\/ if the size of the symmetric difference ... more >>>

Random walks on expanders are a central and versatile tool in pseudorandomness. If an arbitrary half of the vertices of an expander graph are marked, known Chernoff bounds for expander walks imply that the number $M$ of marked vertices visited in a long $n$-step random walk strongly concentrates around the ... more >>>

We show that there is a family of monotone multilinear polynomials over $n$ variables in VP, such that any monotone arithmetic circuit for it would be of size $2^{\Omega(n)}$. Before our result, strongly exponential lower bounds on the size of monotone circuits were known only for computing explicit polynomials in ... more >>>

This text provides a high-level description of the locally testable code constructed by Dinur, Evra, Livne, Lubotzky, and Mozes (ECCC, TR21-151).
In particular, the group theoretic aspects are abstracted as much as possible.

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 >>>

A Chor--Goldreich (CG) source [CG88] is a sequence of random variables $X = X_1 \circ \ldots \circ X_t$, each $X_i \sim \{0,1 \{^d$, such that each $X_i$ has $\delta d$ min-entropy for some constant $\delta > 0$, even conditioned on any fixing of $X_1 \circ \ldots \circ X_{i-1}$. We typically ... more >>>

Random walks on expanders are a powerful tool which found applications in many areas of theoretical computer science, and beyond. However, they come with an inherent cost -- the spectral expansion of the corresponding power graph deteriorates at a rate that is exponential in the length of the walk. As ... more >>>

We introduce and study swap cosystolic expansion, a new expansion property of simplicial complexes. We prove lower bounds for swap coboundary expansion of spherical buildings and use them to lower bound swap cosystolic expansion of the LSV Ramanujan complexes. Our motivation is the recent work (in a companion paper) showing ... more >>>

We consider the query complexity of testing local graph properties in the bounded-degree graph model.
A local property is defined in terms of forbidden subgraphs that are augmented by degree information, where the latter account also for neighbors that are not in the subgraph.
Indeed, this formulation yields a generalized ... more >>>