We study monotone branching programs, wherein the states at each time step can be ordered so that edges with the same labels never cross each other. Equivalently, for each fixed input, the transition functions are a monotone function of the state.

We prove that constant-width monotone branching programs of ... more >>>

We initiate a systematic study of mixing in non-quasirandom groups.
Let $A$ and $B$ be two independent, high-entropy distributions over
a group $G$. We show that the product distribution $AB$ is statistically
close to the distribution $F(AB)$ for several choices of $G$ and
$F$, including:

(1) $G$ is the affine ... more >>>

We exhibit an unambiguous $k$-DNF formula that requires CNF width $\tilde{\Omega}(k^{1.5})$. Our construction is inspired by the board game Hex and it is vastly simpler than previous ones, which achieved at best an exponent of $1.22$. Our result is known to imply several other improved separations in query and communication ... more >>>