We give a combinatorial analysis (using edge expansion) of a variant of the iterative expander construction due to Reingold, Vadhan, and Wigderson [Annals of Mathematics, 2002], and show that this analysis can be formalized in the bounded-arithmetic system $VNC^1$ (corresponding to the ``$NC^1$ reasoning''). As a corollary, we prove the ... more >>>

In this note, we prove that there is an explicit polynomial in VP such that any $\Sigma\Pi\Sigma$ arithmetic circuit computing it must have size at least $n^{3-o(1)}$. Up to $n^{o(1)}$ factors, this strengthens a recent result of Kayal, Saha and Tavenas (ICALP 2016) which gives a polynomial in VNP with ... more >>>

We show that the basic semidefinite programming relaxation value of any constraint satisfaction problem can be computed in NC; that is, in parallel polylogarithmic time and polynomial work. As a complexity-theoretic consequence we get that MIP1$[k,c,s] \subseteq $ PSPACE provided $s/c \leq (.62-o(1))k/2^k$, resolving a question of Austrin, Håstad, and ... more >>>