For a universal constant $\alpha > 0$, we prove size lower bounds of $2^{\alpha N}$ for computing an explicit monotone function in NP in the following models of computation: monotone formulas, monotone switching networks, monotone span programs, and monotone comparator circuits, where $N$ is the number of variables of the ... more >>>
In 1990 Karchmer and Widgerson considered the following communication problem $Bit$: Alice and Bob know a function $f: \{0, 1\}^n \to \{0, 1\}$, Alice receives a point $x \in f^{-1}(1)$, Bob receives $y \in f^{-1}(0)$, and their goal is to find a position $i$ such that $x_i \neq y_i$. Karchmer ... more >>>
We characterize the size of monotone span programs computing certain "structured" boolean functions by the Nullstellensatz degree of a related unsatisfiable Boolean formula.
This yields the first exponential lower bounds for monotone span programs over arbitrary fields, the first exponential separations between monotone span programs over fields of different ... more >>>
One of the major open problems in complexity theory is proving super-logarithmic lower bounds on the depth of circuits (i.e., $\mathbf{P}\not\subseteq\mathbf{NC}^1$). Karchmer, Raz, and Wigderson (Computational Complexity 5(3/4), 1995) suggested to approach this problem by proving that depth complexity behaves “as expected” with respect to the composition of functions $f ... more >>>
Robust sunflowers are a generalization of combinatorial sunflowers that have applications in monotone circuit complexity, DNF sparsification, randomness extractors, and recent advances on the Erd\H{o}s-Rado sunflower conjecture. The recent breakthrough of Alweiss, Lovett, Wu and Zhang gives an improved bound on the maximum size of a $w$-set system that excludes ... more >>>
We give a new characterization of the Sherali-Adams proof system, showing that there is a degree-$d$ Sherali-Adams refutation of an unsatisfiable CNF formula $C$ if and only if there is an $\varepsilon > 0$ and a degree-$d$ conical junta $J$ such that $viol_C(x) - \varepsilon = J$, where $viol_C(x)$ counts ... more >>>
We exhibit supercritical trade-off for monotone circuits, showing that there are functions computable by small circuits for which any circuit must have depth super-linear or even super-polynomial in the number of variables, far exceeding the linear worst-case upper bound. We obtain similar trade-offs in proof complexity, where we establish the ... more >>>
We exhibit a monotone function computable by a monotone circuit of quasipolynomial size such that any monotone circuit of polynomial depth requires exponential size. This is the first size-depth tradeoff result for monotone circuits in the so-called supercritical regime. Our proof is based on an analogous result in proof complexity: ... more >>>