Assume that the edges of the complete bipartite graph $K_{n,n}$ are labeled with elements of $\mathbb{F}_2^d$, such that the sum over
any simple cycle is nonzero. What is the smallest possible value of $d$? This problem was raised by Gopalan et al. [SODA 2017] as it characterizes the alphabet size ... more >>>

The language compression problem asks for succinct descriptions of
the strings in a language A such that the strings can be efficiently
recovered from their description when given a membership oracle for
A. We study randomized and nondeterministic decompression schemes
and investigate how close we can get to the information ... more >>>

Combinatorial property testing deals with the following relaxation of
decision problems: Given a fixed property and an input $f$, one wants
to decide whether $f$ satisfies the property or is `far' from satisfying
the property.
It has been shown that regular languages are testable,
and that there exist context free ... more >>>

Variants of Kannan's Theorem are given where the circuits of
the original theorem are replaced by arbitrary recursively presentable
classes of languages that use advice strings and satisfy certain mild
conditions. These variants imply that $\DTIME(n^{k'})^{\NE}/n^k$
does not contain $\PTIME^{\NE}$, $\DTIME(2^{n^{k'}})/n^k$ does
not contain $\EXP$, $\SPACE(n^{k'})/n^k$ does not ... more >>>

We study languages with bounded communication complexity in the multiparty "input on the forehead" model with worst-case partition. In the two party case, it is known that such languages are exactly those that are recognized by programs over commutative monoids. This can be used to show that these languages can ... more >>>

A Zero-Knowledge PCP (ZK-PCP) is a randomized PCP such that the view of any (perhaps cheating) efficient verifier can be efficiently simulated up to small statistical distance. Kilian, Petrank, and Tardos (STOC '97) constructed ZK-PCPs for all languages in $NEXP$. Ishai, Mahmoody, and Sahai (TCC '12), motivated by cryptographic applications, ... more >>>

We prove resolution lower bounds for $k$-Clique on the Erdos-Renyi random graph $G(n,n^{-{2\xi}\over{k-1}})$ (where $\xi>1$ is constant). First we show for $k=n^{c_0}$, $c_0\in(0,1/3)$, an $\exp({\Omega(n^{(1-\epsilon)c_0})})$ average lower bound on resolution where $\epsilon$ is arbitrary constant.

We then propose the model of $a$-irregular resolution. Extended from regular resolution, this model ... more >>>

There has been considerable interest lately in the complexity of distributions. Recently, Lovett and Viola (CCC 2011) showed that the statistical distance between a uniform distribution over a good code, and any distribution which can be efficiently sampled by a small bounded-depth AC0 circuit, is inverse-polynomially close to one. That ... more >>>

We present an approximation scheme for optimizing certain Quadratic Integer Programming problems with positive semidefinite objective functions and global linear constraints. This framework includes well known graph problems such as Minimum graph bisection, Edge expansion, Uniform sparsest cut, and Small Set expansion, as well as the Unique Games problem. These ... more >>>

The Sensitivity Conjecture, posed in 1994, states that the fundamental measures known as the sensitivity and block sensitivity of a Boolean function $f$, $s(f)$ and $bs(f)$ respectively, are polynomially related. It is known that $bs(f)$ is polynomially related to important measures in computer science including the decision-tree depth, polynomial degree, ... more >>>

We demonstrate an \emph{average-case} problem which is as hard as
finding $\gamma(n)$-approximate shortest vectors in certain
$n$-dimensional lattices in the \emph{worst case}, where $\gamma(n)
= O(\sqrt{\log n})$. The previously best known factor for any class
of lattices was $\gamma(n) = \tilde{O}(n)$.

To obtain our ... more >>>

We give a method for approximating any $n$-dimensional
lattice with a lattice $\Lambda$ whose factor group
$\mathbb{Z}^n / \Lambda$ has $n-1$ cycles of equal length
with arbitrary precision. We also show that a direct
consequence of this is that the Shortest Vector Problem and the Closest
Vector Problem cannot ... 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 >>>

The Alon-Edmonds-Luby distance amplification procedure (FOCS 1995) is an algorithm that transforms a code with vanishing distance to a code with constant distance. AEL was invoked by Kopparty, Meir, Ron-Zewi, and Saraf (J. ACM 2017) for obtaining their state-of-the-art LDC, LCC and LTC. Cohen and Yankovitz (CCC 2021) devised a ... more >>>

We show that Gallager's ensemble of Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes achieve list-decoding capacity. These are the first graph-based codes shown to have this property. Previously, the only codes known to achieve list-decoding capacity were completely random codes, random linear codes, and codes constructed by algebraic (rather than combinatorial) techniques. ... more >>>

In a recent work, Kumar, Meka, and Sahai (FOCS 2019) introduced the notion of bounded collusion protocols (BCPs), in which $N$ parties wish to compute some joint function $f:(\{0,1\}^n)^N\to\{0,1\}$ using a public blackboard, but such that only $p$ parties may collude at a time. This generalizes well studied models in ... more >>>

A central open problem in complexity theory concerns the question of
whether all efficient randomized algorithms can be simulated by
efficient deterministic algorithms. The celebrated ``hardness
v.s. randomness” paradigm pioneered by Blum-Micali (SIAM JoC’84),
Yao (FOCS’84) and Nisan-Wigderson (JCSS’94) presents hardness
assumptions under which $\prBPP = \prP$, but these hardness ... more >>>

A recent trend in cryptography is to construct cryptosystems that are secure against physical attacks. Such attacks are usually divided into two classes: the \emph{leakage} attacks in which the adversary obtains some information about the internal state of the machine, and the \emph{tampering} attacks where the adversary can modify this ... more >>>

In this work, we consider the natural goal of designing secret sharing schemes that ensure security against a powerful adaptive adversary who may learn some ``leaked'' information about all the shares. We say that a secret sharing scheme is $p$-party leakage-resilient, if the secret remains statistically hidden even after an ... more >>>

We investigate randomized LEARN-uniformity, which captures the power of randomness and equivalence queries (EQ) in the construction of Boolean circuits for an explicit problem. This is an intermediate notion between P-uniformity and non-uniformity motivated by connections to learning, complexity, and logic. Building on a number of techniques, we establish the ... more >>>

In 2002 Jackson et al. [JKS02] asked whether AC0 circuits augmented with a threshold gate at the output can be efficiently learned from uniform random examples. We answer this question affirmatively by showing that such circuits have fairly strong Fourier concentration; hence the low-degree algorithm of Linial, Mansour and Nisan ... more >>>

We present a general framework for designing efficient algorithms for unsupervised learning problems, such as mixtures of Gaussians and subspace clustering. Our framework is based on a meta algorithm that learns arithmetic circuits in the presence of noise, using lower bounds. This builds upon the recent work of Garg, Kayal ... more >>>

Monotone Boolean functions, and the monotone Boolean circuits that compute them, have been intensively studied in complexity theory. In this paper we study the structure of Boolean functions in terms of the minimum number of negations in any circuit computing them, a complexity measure that interpolates between monotone functions and ... more >>>

Consider a homogeneous degree $d$ polynomial $f = T_1 + \cdots + T_s$, $T_i = g_i(\ell_{i,1}, \ldots, \ell_{i, m})$ where $g_i$'s are homogeneous $m$-variate degree $d$ polynomials and $\ell_{i,j}$'s are linear polynomials in $n$ variables. We design a (randomized) learning algorithm that given black-box access to $f$, computes black-boxes for ... more >>>

We study the online decision problem where the set of available actions varies over time, also called the sleeping experts problem. We consider the setting where the performance comparison is made with respect to the best ordering of actions in hindsight. In this paper, both the payoff function and the ... more >>>

Pessiland is one of Impagliazzo's five possible worlds in which NP is hard on average, yet no one-way function exists. This world is considered the most pessimistic because it offers neither algorithmic nor cryptographic benefits.

In this paper, we develop a unified framework for constructing strong learning algorithms ... more >>>

The combination of two major challenges in machine learning is investigated: dealing with large amounts of irrelevant information and learning from noisy data. It is shown that large classes of Boolean concepts that depend on a small number of variables---so-called juntas---can be learned efficiently from random examples corrupted by random ... more >>>

It has been shown in previous recent work that
multiplicity automata are predictable from multiplicity
and equivalence queries. In this paper we generalize
related notions in a matrix representation
and obtain a basis for the solution
of a number of open problems in learnability theory.
Membership queries are generalized ... more >>>

We present a PAC-learning algorithm and an on-line learning algorithm
for nested differences of intersection-closed classes. Examples of
intersection-closed classes include axis-parallel rectangles,
monomials, and linear sub-spaces. Our PAC-learning algorithm uses a
pruning technique that we rigorously proof correct. As a result we
show that ... more >>>

We present algorithms for learning depth two neural networks where the
hidden nodes are threshold gates with constant fan-in. The transfer
function of the output node might be more general: we have results for
the cases when the threshold function, the logistic function or the
identity function is ... more >>>

We study the problem of learning parity functions that depend on at most $k$ variables ($k$-parities) attribute-efficiently in the mistake-bound model.
We design simple, deterministic, polynomial-time algorithms for learning $k$-parities with mistake bound $O(n^{1-\frac{c}{k}})$, for any constant $c > 0$. These are the first polynomial-time algorithms that learn $\omega(1)$-parities in ... more >>>

In the {\em learning parities with noise} problem ---well-studied in learning theory and cryptography--- we
have access to an oracle that, each time we press a button,
returns a random vector $ a \in \GF(2)^n$ together with a bit $b \in \GF(2)$ that was computed as
$a\cdot u +\eta$, where ... more >>>

This is a revised version of work which has appeared
in preliminary form in the 36th FOCS, 1995.

Given a function $f$ mapping $n$-variate inputs from a finite field
$F$ into $F$,
we consider the task of reconstructing a list of all $n$-variate
degree $d$ polynomials which agree with $f$
more >>>

We give an algorithm that with high probability properly learns random monotone t(n)-term
DNF under the uniform distribution on the Boolean cube {0, 1}^n. For any polynomially bounded function t(n) <= poly(n) the algorithm runs in time poly(n, 1/eps) and with high probability outputs an eps accurate monotone DNF ... more >>>

Residuality plays an essential role for learning finite automata.
While residual deterministic and nondeterministic
automata have been understood quite well, fundamental
questions concerning alternating automata (AFA) remain open.
Recently, Angluin, Eisenstat, and Fisman have initiated
a systematic study of residual AFAs and proposed an algorithm called AL*
-an extension of ... more >>>

We develop algorithms for writing a polynomial as sums of powers of low degree polynomials. Consider an $n$-variate degree-$d$ polynomial $f$ which can be written as
$$f = c_1Q_1^{m} + \ldots + c_s Q_s^{m},$$
where each $c_i\in \mathbb{F}^{\times}$, $Q_i$ is a homogeneous polynomial of degree $t$, and $t m = ... more >>>

A polynomial-stretch pseudorandom generator (PPRG) in NC$^0$ (i.e., constant parallel time) is one of the most important cryptographic primitives, especially for constructing highly efficient cryptography and indistinguishability obfuscation. The celebrated work (Applebaum, Ishai, and Kushilevitz, SIAM Journal on Computing, 2006) on randomized encodings yields the characterization of sublinear-stretch pseudorandom generators ... more >>>

Span programs form a linear-algebraic model of computation, with span program "size" used in proving classical lower bounds. Quantum query complexity is a coherent generalization, for quantum algorithms, of classical decision-tree complexity. It is bounded below by a semi-definite program (SDP) known as the general adversary bound. We connect these ... more >>>

The principal aim of this notes is to give a survey on the state of the art of algorithmic number theory, with particular focus on the theory of elliptic curves.
Computational security is the goal of modern cryptographic constructions: the security of modern criptographic schemes stems from the assumption ... more >>>

This paper describes the Lempel-Ziv dimension (Hausdorff like
dimension inspired in the LZ78 parsing), its fundamental properties
and relation with Hausdorff dimension.

It is shown that in the case of individual infinite sequences, the
Lempel-Ziv dimension matches with the asymptotical Lempel-Ziv
compression ratio.

This fact is used to describe results ... more >>>

We give a reduction from any two-player game to a special case of
the Leontief exchange economy, with the property that the Nash equilibria of the game and the
equilibria of the market are in one-to-one correspondence.

Our reduction exposes a potential hurdle inherent in solving certain
families of market ... more >>>

We study the problem of matrix Lie algebra conjugacy. Lie algebras arise centrally in areas as diverse as differential equations, particle physics, group theory, and the Mulmuley--Sohoni Geometric Complexity Theory program. A matrix Lie algebra is a set $\mathcal{L}$ of matrices such that $A,B \in \mathcal{L}$ implies$AB - BA \in ... more >>>

We study the lift-and-project procedures of Lovasz-Schrijver and Sherali-Adams applied to the standard linear programming relaxation of the traveling salesperson problem with triangle inequality. For the asymmetric TSP tour problem, Charikar, Goemans, and Karloff (FOCS 2004) proved that the integrality gap of the standard relaxation is at least 2. We ... more >>>

Lifting theorems are used for transferring lower bounds between Boolean function complexity measures. Given a lower bound on a complexity measure $A$ for some function $f$, we compose $f$ with a carefully chosen gadget function $g$ and get essentially the same lower bound on a complexity measure $B$ for the ... 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 >>>

We examine the existing Resolution systems for quantified Boolean formulas (QBF) and answer the question which of these calculi can be lifted to the more powerful Dependency QBFs (DQBF). An interesting picture emerges: While for QBF we have the strict chain of proof systems Q-Resolution < IR-calc < IRM-calc, the ... more >>>

We show that for any (partial) query function $f:\{0,1\}^n\rightarrow \{0,1\}$, the randomized communication complexity of $f$ composed with $\mathrm{Index}^n_m$ (with $m= \poly(n)$) is at least the randomized query complexity of $f$ times $\log n$. Here $\mathrm{Index}_m : [m] \times \{0,1\}^m \rightarrow \{0,1\}$ is defined as $\mathrm{Index}_m(x,y)= y_x$ (the $x$th bit ... more >>>

We show a deterministic simulation (or lifting) theorem for composed problems $f \circ EQ_n$ where the inner function (the gadget) is Equality on $n$ bits. When $f$ is a total function on $p$ bits, it is easy to show via a rank argument that the communication complexity of $f\circ EQ_n$ ... more >>>

We show that the deterministic decision tree complexity of a (partial) function or relation $f$ lifts to the deterministic parity decision tree (PDT) size complexity of the composed function/relation $f \circ g$ as long as the gadget $g$ satisfies a property that we call stifling. We observe that several simple ... more >>>

The propositional proof system resolution over parities (Res($\oplus$)) combines resolution and the linear algebra over GF(2). It is a challenging open question to prove a superpolynomial lower bound on the proof size in this system. For many years, superpolynomial lower bounds were known only in tree-like cases. Recently, Efremenko, Garlik, ... more >>>

Lifting theorems are theorems that bound the communication complexity
of a composed function $f\circ g^{n}$ in terms of the query complexity
of $f$ and the communication complexity of $g$. Such theorems
constitute a powerful generalization of direct-sum theorems for $g$,
and have seen numerous applications in recent years.

We prove ... more >>>

We significantly strengthen and generalize the theorem lifting Nullstellensatz degree to monotone span program size by Pitassi and Robere (2018) so that it works for any gadget with high enough rank, in particular, for useful gadgets such as equality and greater-than. We apply our generalized theorem to solve two open ... more >>>

Query-to-communication lifting theorems translate lower bounds on query complexity to lower bounds for the corresponding communication model. In this paper, we give a simplified proof of deterministic lifting (in both the tree-like and dag-like settings). Whereas previous proofs used sophisticated Fourier analytic techniques, our proof uses elementary counting together with ... more >>>

This paper describes recent results which revolve around the question of the rate attainable by families of error correcting codes that are locally testable. Emphasis is placed on motivating the problem of proving upper bounds on the rate of these codes and a number of interesting open questions for future ... 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 consider so-called ``incremental'' dynamic programming (DP) algorithms, and are interested in the number of subproblems produced by them. The standard DP algorithm for the n-dimensional Knapsack problem is incremental, and produces nK subproblems, where K is the capacity of the knapsack. We show that any incremental algorithm for this ... more >>>

Given a weighted graph $G = (V,E,w)$, with weight function $w: E \rightarrow \mathbb{Q^+}$, a \textit{matching} $M$ is a set of pairwise non-adjacent edges. In the optimization setting, one seeks to find a matching of \textit{maximum} weight. In the \textit{multi-criteria} (or \textit{multi-budgeted}) setting, we are also given $\ell$ length functions ... more >>>

We study local filters for two properties of functions $f:\B^d\to \mathbb{R}$: the Lipschitz property and monotonicity. A local filter with additive error $a$ is a randomized algorithm that is given black-box access to a function $f$ and a query point $x$ in the domain of $f$. Its output is a ... more >>>

We study the circuit complexity of Boolean operators, i.e., collections of Boolean functions defined over a common input. Our focus is the well-studied model in which arbitrary Boolean functions are allowed as gates, and in which a circuit's complexity is measured by its depth and number of wires. We show ... more >>>

Although a quantum state requires exponentially many classical bits to describe, the laws of quantum mechanics impose severe restrictions on how that state can be accessed. This paper shows in three settings that quantum messages have only limited advantages over classical ones.
First, we show that BQP/qpoly is contained in ... more >>>

We study limitations of polynomials computed by depth two circuits built over read-once polynomials (ROPs) and depth three syntactically multi-linear formulas.
We prove an exponential lower bound for the size of the $\Sigma\Pi^{[N^{1/30}]}$ arithmetic circuits built over syntactically multi-linear $\Sigma\Pi\Sigma^{[N^{8/15}]}$ arithmetic circuits computing a product of variable ... more >>>

The classic Impagliazzo--Nisan--Wigderson (INW) psesudorandom generator (PRG) (STOC `94) for space-bounded computation uses a seed of length $O(\log n \cdot \log(nwd/\varepsilon))$ to fool ordered branching programs of length $n$, width $w$, and alphabet size $d$ to within error $\varepsilon$. A series of works have shown that the analysis of the ... 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 their seminal work, Atserias et al. and independently Pipatsrisawat and Darwiche in 2009 showed that CDCL solvers can simulate resolution proofs with polynomial overhead. However, previous work does not address the tightness of the simulation, i.e., the question of how large this overhead needs to be. In this paper, ... more >>>

Local algorithms on graphs are algorithms that run in parallel on the nodes of a graph to compute some global structural feature of the graph. Such algorithms use only local information available at nodes to determine local aspects of the global structure, while also potentially using some randomness. Recent research ... more >>>

The Minimum Circuit Size Problem (MCSP) is known to be hard for statistical zero knowledge via a BPP-reduction (Allender and Das, 2014), whereas establishing NP-hardness of MCSP via a polynomial-time many-one reduction is difficult (Murray and Williams, 2015) in the sense that it implies ZPP $\neq$ EXP, which is a ... more >>>

We show that public-key bit encryption schemes which support weak homomorphic evaluation of parity or majority cannot be proved message indistinguishable beyond AM intersect coAM via general (adaptive) reductions, and beyond statistical zero-knowledge via reductions of constant query complexity.

Previous works on the limitation of reductions for proving security of ... more >>>

The seminal result of Impagliazzo and Rudich (STOC 1989) gave a black-box separation between one-way functions and public-key encryption: informally, a public-key encryption scheme cannot be constructed using one-way functions as the sole source of computational hardness. In addition, this implied a black-box separation between one-way functions and protocols for ... more >>>

For a class of finite graphs, we define a limit object relative to some computationally restricted class of functions. The properties of the limit object then reflect how a computationally restricted viewer "sees" a generic instance from the class. The construction uses Krají?ek's forcing with random variables [7]. We prove ... more >>>

This paper characterizes alternation trading based proofs that satisfiability is not in the time and space bounded class $\DTISP(n^c, n^\epsilon)$, for various values $c<2$ and $\epsilon<1$. We characterize exactly what can be proved in the $\epsilon=0$ case with currently known methods, and prove the conjecture of Williams that $c=2\cos(\pi/7)$ is ... more >>>

We prove that for every function $G\colon\{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^m$, if every output of $G$ is a polynomial (over $\mathbb{R}$) of degree at most $d$ of at most $s$ monomials and $m > \widetilde{O}(sn^{\lceil d/2 \rceil})$, then there is a polynomial time algorithm that can distinguish a vector of the form ... 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 >>>

We show that for any $p \geq 2$, lattice problems in the $\ell_p$
norm are subject to all the same limits on hardness as are known
for the $\ell_2$ norm. In particular, for lattices of dimension
$n$:

* Approximating the shortest and closest vector in ... more >>>

A linear code is said to be affine-invariant if the coordinates of the code can be viewed as a vector space and the code is invariant under an affine transformation of the coordinates. A code is said to be locally testable if proximity of a received word
to the code ... more >>>

Many commonly-used auction mechanisms are ``maximal-in-range''. We show that any maximal-in-range mechanism for $n$ bidders and $m$ items cannot both approximate the social welfare with a ratio better than $\min(n, m^\eta)$ for any constant $\eta < 1/2$ and run in polynomial time, unless $NP \subseteq P/poly$. This significantly improves upon ... more >>>

It has been known since [Zyablov and Pinsker 1982] that a random $q$-ary code of rate $1-H_q(\rho)-\eps$ (where $0<\rho<1-1/q$, $\eps>0$ and $H_q(\cdot)$ is the $q$-ary entropy function) with high probability is a $(\rho,1/\eps)$-list decodable code. (That is, every Hamming ball of radius at most $\rho n$ has at most $1/\eps$ ... more >>>

We show that examinations of the expressive power of logical formulae
enriched by Lindstroem quantifiers over ordered finite structures
have a well-studied complexity-theoretic counterpart: the leaf
language approach to define complexity classes. Model classes of
formulae with Lindstroem quantifiers are nothing else than leaf
language definable sets. Along the ... 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 prove exponential separations between the sizes of
particular refutations in negative, respectively linear, resolution and
general resolution. Only a superpolynomial separation between negative
and general resolution was previously known. Our examples show that there
is no strong relationship between the size and width of refutations in
negative and ... more >>>

It is well known that every finite Abelian group $G$ can be
represented as a product of cyclic groups: $G=G_1\times
G_2\times\cdots G_t$, where each $G_i$ is a cyclic group of size
$p^j$ for some prime $p$ and integer $j\ge 1$. If $a_i$ is the
generator of the cyclic group of ... more >>>

Network coding studies the capacity of networks to carry information, when internal nodes are allowed to actively encode information. It is known that for multi-cast networks, the network coding capacity can be achieved by linear codes. It is also known not to be true for general networks. The best separation ... more >>>

We extend the notion of linearity testing to the task of checking
linear-consistency of multiple functions. Informally, functions
are ``linear'' if their graphs form straight lines on the plane.
Two such functions are ``consistent'' if the lines have the same
slope. We propose a variant of a test of ... more >>>

A randomness extractor is an algorithm which extracts randomness from a low-quality random source, using some additional truly random bits. We construct new extractors which require only log n + O(1) additional random bits for sources with constant entropy rate. We further construct dispersers, which are similar to one-sided extractors, ... more >>>

We show that a randomly chosen linear map over a finite field gives a good hash function in the $\ell_\infty$ sense. More concretely, consider a set $S \subset \mathbb{F}_q^n$ and a randomly chosen linear map $L : \mathbb{F}_q^n \to \mathbb{F}_q^t$ with $q^t$ taken to be sufficiently smaller than $|S|$. Let ... more >>>

We develop a new technique for analyzing linear independence of multivariate polynomials. One of our main technical contributions is a \emph{Small Witness for Linear Independence} (SWLI) lemma which states the following.
If the polynomials $f_1,f_2, \ldots, f_k \in \F[X]$ over $X=\{x_1, \ldots, x_n\}$ are $\F$-linearly independent then there exists ... more >>>

A $c$-short program for a string $x$ is a description of $x$ of length at most $C(x) + c$, where $C(x)$ is the Kolmogorov complexity of $x$. We show that there exists a randomized algorithm that constructs a list of $n$ elements that contains a $O(\log n)$-short program for $x$. ... 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 >>>

We recover the first linear programming bound of McEliece, Rodemich, Rumsey, and Welch for binary error-correcting codes and designs via a covering argument. It is possible to show, interpreting the following notions appropriately, that if a code has a large distance, then its dual has a small covering radius and, ... more >>>

An n-variate Vandermonde polynomial is the determinant of the n × n matrix where the ith column is the vector (1, x_i , x_i^2 , . . . , x_i^{n-1})^T. Vandermonde polynomials play a crucial role in the in the theory of alternating polynomials and occur in Lagrangian polynomial interpolation ... more >>>

Relaxed locally decodable codes (RLDCs) are error-correcting codes in which individual bits of the message can be recovered by querying only a few bits from a noisy codeword.
Unlike standard (non-relaxed) decoders, a relaxed one is allowed to output a ``rejection'' symbol, indicating that the decoding failed.
To prevent the ... more >>>

We initiate a systematic study of linear sketching over $\mathbb F_2$. For a given Boolean function $f \colon \{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ a randomized $\mathbb F_2$-sketch is a distribution $\mathcal M$ over $d \times n$ matrices with elements over $\mathbb F_2$ such that $\mathcal Mx$ suffices for computing $f(x)$ with high ... more >>>

We consider the approximability of constraint satisfaction problems in the streaming setting. For every constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) on $n$ variables taking values in $\{0,\ldots,q-1\}$, we prove that improving over the trivial approximability by a factor of $q$ requires $\Omega(n)$ space even on instances with $O(n)$ constraints. We also identify ... more >>>

We consider a system of linear constraints over any finite Abelian group $G$ of the following form: $\ell_i(x_1,\ldots,x_n) \equiv \ell_{i,1}x_1+\cdots+\ell_{i,n}x_n \in A_i$ for $i=1,\ldots,t$ and each $A_i \subset G$, $\ell_{i,j}$ is an element of $G$ and $x_i$'s are Boolean variables. Our main result shows that the subset of the Boolean ... more >>>

We study solution sets to systems of generalized linear equations of the following form:
$\ell_i (x_1, x_2, \cdots , x_n)\, \in \,A_i \,\, (\text{mod } m)$,
where $\ell_1, \ldots ,\ell_t$ are linear forms in $n$ Boolean variables, each $A_i$ is an arbitrary subset of $\mathbb{Z}_m$, and $m$ is a composite ... more >>>

We show that polynomial-size constant-rank linear decision trees (LDTs) can be converted to polynomial-size depth-2 threshold circuits LTF$\circ$LTF. An intermediate construct is polynomial-size decision lists that query a conjunction of a constant number of linear threshold functions (LTFs); we show that these are equivalent to polynomial-size exact linear decision lists ... more >>>

Motivated in part by applications in lattice-based cryptography, we initiate the study of the size of linear threshold (`$t$-out-of-$n$') secret-sharing where the linear reconstruction function is restricted to coefficients in $\{0,1\}$. We prove upper and lower bounds on the share size of such schemes. One ramification of our results is ... more >>>

We design a linear time approximation scheme for the Gale-Berlekamp Switching Game and generalize it to a wider class of dense fragile minimization problems including the Nearest Codeword Problem (NCP) and Unique Games Problem. Further applications include, among other things, finding a constrained form of matrix rigidity and maximum likelihood ... more >>>

Sipser and Spielman (IEEE IT, 1996) showed that any $(c,d)$-regular expander code with expansion parameter $> \frac{3}{4}$ is decodable in \emph{linear time} from a constant fraction of errors. Feldman et al. (IEEE IT, 2007)
proved that expansion parameter $> \frac{2}{3} + \frac{1}{3c}$ is sufficient to correct a constant fraction of ... more >>>

We analyze the efficiency of the random walk algorithm on random 3CNF instances, and prove em linear upper bounds on the running time
of this algorithm for small clause density, less than 1.63. Our upper bound matches the observed running time to within a multiplicative factor. This is the ... more >>>

Folded Reed-Solomon codes are an explicit family of codes that achieve the optimal trade-off between rate and list error-correction capability. Specifically, for any $\epsilon > 0$, Guruswami and Rudra presented an $n^{O(1/\epsilon)}$ time algorithm to list decode appropriate folded RS codes of rate $R$ from a fraction $1-R-\epsilon$ of ... more >>>

We study the circuit complexity of the multiselection problem: given an input string $x \in \{0,1\}^n$ along with indices $i_1,\dots,i_q \in [n]$, output $(x_{i_1},\dots,x_{i_q})$. A trivial lower bound for the circuit size is the input length $n + q \cdot \log(n)$, but the straightforward construction has size $\Theta(q \cdot n)$.

We give a linear-time erasure list-decoding algorithm for expander codes. More precisely, let $r > 0$ be any integer. Given an inner code $\cC_0$ of length $d$, and a $d$-regular bipartite expander graph $G$ with $n$ vertices on each side, we give an algorithm to list-decode the expander code $\cC ... more >>>

This paper proves that there is, in every direction in Euclidean space, a line that misses every computably random point. Our proof of this fact shows that a famous set constructed by Besicovitch in 1964 has computable measure 0.

In this paper we extend the notion of list decoding to the setting of interactive communication and study its limits. In particular, we show that any protocol can be encoded, with a constant rate, into a list-decodable protocol which is resilient
to a noise rate of up to $1/2-\varepsilon$, ... more >>>

The question of list decoding error-correcting codes over finite fields (under the Hamming metric) has been widely studied in recent years. Motivated by the similar discrete structure of linear codes and point lattices in $R^{N}$, and their many shared applications across complexity theory, cryptography, and coding theory, we initiate the ... more >>>

The list decoding problem for a code asks for the maximal radius up to which any ball of that radius contains only a constant number of codewords. The list decoding radius is not well understood even for well studied codes, like Reed-Solomon or Reed-Muller codes.

Fix a finite field $\mathbb{F}$. ... 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 design the first efficient algorithms and prove new combinatorial bounds for list decoding tensor products of codes and interleaved codes.

1)We show that for every code, the ratio of its list decoding radius to its minimum distance stays unchanged under the tensor product operation (rather than squaring, as one ... more >>>

We show that Yao's XOR Lemma, and its essentially equivalent
rephrasing as a Direct Product Lemma, can be
re-interpreted as a way of obtaining error-correcting
codes with good list-decoding algorithms from error-correcting
codes having weak unique-decoding algorithms. To get codes
with good rate and efficient list decoding algorithms
one needs ... more >>>

We develop the notion of double samplers, first introduced by Dinur and Kaufman [Proc. 58th FOCS, 2017], which are samplers with additional combinatorial properties, and whose existence we prove using high dimensional expanders.

We show how double samplers give a generic way of amplifying distance in a way that enables ... more >>>

Spielman showed that one can construct error-correcting codes capable
of correcting a constant fraction $\delta << 1/2$ of errors,
and that are encodable/decodable in linear time.
Guruswami and Sudan showed that it is possible to correct
more than $50\%$ of errors (and thus exceed the ``half of the ... more >>>

We study the list-decodability of multiplicity codes. These codes, which are based on evaluations of high-degree polynomials and their derivatives, have rate approaching $1$ while simultaneously allowing for sublinear-time error-correction. In this paper, we show that multiplicity codes also admit powerful list-decoding and local list-decoding algorithms correcting a large fraction ... more >>>

In a breakthrough result, Ta-Shma described an explicit construction of an almost optimal binary code (STOC 2017). Ta-Shma's code has distance $\frac{1-\varepsilon}{2}$ and rate $\Omega\bigl(\varepsilon^{2+o(1)}\bigr)$ and thus it almost achieves the Gilbert-Varshamov bound, except for the $o(1)$ term in the exponent. The prior best list-decoding algorithm for (a variant of) ... more >>>

There are standard logics DTC, TC, and LFP capturing the complexity classes L, NL, and P on ordered structures, respectively. In [Chen and Flum, 2010] we have shown that ${\rm LFP}_{\rm inv}$, the ``order-invariant least fixed-point logic LFP,'' captures P (on all finite structures) if and only if there is ... more >>>

We consider the task of locally correcting, and locally list-correcting, multivariate linear functions over the domain $\{0,1\}^n$ over arbitrary fields and more generally Abelian groups. Such functions form error-correcting codes of relative distance $1/2$ and we give local-correction algorithms correcting up to nearly $1/4$-fraction errors making $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(\log n)$ queries. This ... more >>>

We introduce and construct a pseudorandom object which we call a local correlation breaker (LCB). Informally speaking, an LCB is a function that gets as input a sequence of $r$ (arbitrarily correlated) random variables and an independent weak-source. The output of the LCB is a sequence of $r$ random variables ... more >>>

The Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) is among the most influential discoveries in text compression and DNA storage. It is a \emph{reversible} preprocessing step that rearranges an $n$-letter string into runs of identical characters (by exploiting context regularities), resulting in highly compressible strings, and is the basis for the ubiquitous \texttt{bzip} program. ... more >>>

The well-known DeMillo-Lipton-Schwartz-Zippel lemma says that $n$-variate
polynomials of total degree at most $d$ over
grids, i.e. sets of the form $A_1 \times A_2 \times \cdots \times A_n$, form
error-correcting codes (of distance at least $2^{-d}$ provided $\min_i\{|A_i|\}\geq 2$).
In this work we explore their local
decodability and local testability. ... more >>>

Abstract A map $f:{0,1}^{n}\to {0,1}^{n}$ has locality t if every output bit of f depends only on t input bits. Arora, Steurer, and Wigderson (2009) ask if there exist bounded-degree expander graphs on $2^{n}$ nodes such that the neighbors of a node $x\in {0,1}^{n}$ can be computed by maps of ... more >>>

Suppose that every k points in a n point metric space X are D-distortion embeddable into l_1. We give upper and lower bounds on the distortion required to embed the entire space X into l_1. This is a natural mathematical question and is also motivated by the study of relaxations ... more >>>

Recently Efremenko showed locally-decodable codes of sub-exponential
length. That result showed that these codes can handle up to
$\frac{1}{3} $ fraction of errors. In this paper we show that the
same codes can be locally unique-decoded from error rate
$\half-\alpha$ for any $\alpha>0$ and locally list-decoded from
error rate $1-\alpha$ ... more >>>

In this work, we give the first construction of {\em high-rate} locally list-recoverable codes. List-recovery has been an extremely useful building block in coding theory, and our motivation is to use these codes as such a building block.
In particular, our construction gives the first {\em capacity-achieving} locally list-decodable ... more >>>

In this paper, we give surprisingly efficient algorithms for list-decoding and testing
{\em random} linear codes. Our main result is that random sparse linear codes are locally testable and locally list-decodable
in the {\em high-error} regime with only a {\em constant} number of queries.
More precisely, we show that ... more >>>

Given a MAX-2-SAT instance, we define a local maximum to be an assignment such that changing any single variable reduces the number of satisfied clauses. We consider the question of the number of local maxima hat an instance of MAX-2-SAT can have. We give upper bounds in both the sparse ... more >>>

Interactive oracle proofs (IOPs) are a hybrid between interactive proofs and PCPs. In an IOP the prover is allowed to interact with a verifier (like in an interactive proof) by sending relatively long messages to the verifier, who in turn is only allowed to query a few of the bits ... more >>>

We study the problem of \emph{reconstructing a low-rank matrix}, where the input is an $n\times m$ matrix $M$ over a field $\mathbb{F}$ and the goal is to reconstruct a (near-optimal) matrix $M'$ that is low-rank and close to $M$ under some distance function $\Delta$.
Furthermore, the reconstruction must be local, ... more >>>

We reduce non-deterministic time $T \ge 2^n$ to a 3SAT
instance $\phi$ of size $|\phi| = T \cdot \log^{O(1)} T$
such that there is an explicit circuit $C$ that on input
an index $i$ of $\log |\phi|$ bits outputs the $i$th
clause, and each output bit of $C$ depends on ... more >>>

We survey the state of the art in constructions of locally testable
codes, locally decodable codes and locally correctable codes of high rate.

Motivated by the structural analogies between point lattices and linear error-correcting codes, and by the mature theory on locally testable codes, we initiate a systematic study of local testing for membership in lattices. Testing membership in lattices is also motivated in practice, by applications to integer programming, error detection in ... more >>>

Spurred by the influential work of Viola (Journal of Computing 2012), the past decade has witnessed an active line of research into the complexity of (approximately) sampling distributions, in contrast to the traditional focus on the complexity of computing functions.

We build upon and make explicit earlier implicit results of ... more >>>

We study the locality of an extension of first-order logic that captures graph queries computable in AC$^0$, i.e., by families of polynomial-size constant-depth circuits. The extension considers first-order formulas over relational structures which may use arbitrary numerical predicates in such a way that their truth value is independent of the ... more >>>

We study the problem of constructing locally computable Universal One-Way Hash Functions (UOWHFs) $H:\{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}^m$. A construction with constant \emph{output locality}, where every bit of the output depends only on a constant number of bits of the input, was established by [Applebaum, Ishai, and Kushilevitz, SICOMP 2006]. However, this ... more >>>

We strengthen an earlier notion of
resource-bounded Baire's categories, and define
resource bounded Baire's categories on small complexity classes such as P, QP, SUBEXP
and on probabilistic complexity classes such as BPP.
We give an alternative characterization of meager sets via resource-bounded
Banach Mazur games.
We show that the class ... more >>>

An instance of a constraint satisfaction problem is $l$-consistent
if any $l$ constraints of it can be simultaneously satisfied.
For a set $\Pi$ of constraint types, $\rho_l(\Pi)$ denotes the largest ratio of constraints which can be satisfied in any $l$-consistent instance composed by constraints from the set $\Pi$. In the ... more >>>

Locally-correctable codes (LCCs) and locally-testable codes (LTCs) are codes that admit local algorithms for decoding and testing respectively. The local algorithms are randomized algorithms that make only a small number of queries to their input. LCCs and LTCs are both interesting in their own right, and have important applications in ... more >>>

A k-query Locally Decodable Code (LDC) encodes an n-bit message x as an N-bit codeword C(x), such that one can probabilistically recover any bit x_i of the message by querying only k bits of the codeword C(x), even after some constant fraction of codeword bits has been corrupted. The major ... more >>>

In this work we study two seemingly unrelated notions. Locally Decodable Codes(LDCs) are codes that allow the recovery of each message bit from a constant number of entries of the codeword. Polynomial Identity Testing (PIT) is one of the fundamental problems of algebraic complexity: we are given a circuit computing ... 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 characterize the power of constant-depth Boolean circuits in generating uniform symmetric distributions. Let $f\colon\{0,1\}^m\to\{0,1\}^n$ be a Boolean function where each output bit of $f$ depends only on $O(1)$ input bits. Assume the output distribution of $f$ on uniform input bits is close to a uniform distribution $\mathcal D$ with ... more >>>

A CNF formula is k-satisfiable if each k clauses of it can be satisfied
simultaneously. Let \pi_k be the largest real number such that for each
k-satisfiable formula with variables x_i, there are probabilities p_i
with the following property: If each variable x_i is chosen randomly and
independently to be ... more >>>

One of the most important open problems in the theory
of error-correcting codes is to determine the
tradeoff between the rate $R$ and minimum distance $\delta$ of a binary
code. The best known tradeoff is the Gilbert-Varshamov bound,
and says that for every $\delta \in (0, 1/2)$, there are ... more >>>

The Unique Games Conjecture (UGC) is possibly the most important open problem in the research of PCPs and hardness of approximation. The conjecture is a strengthening of the PCP Theorem, predicting the existence of a special type of PCP verifiers: 2-query verifiers that only make unique tests. Moreover, the UGC ... more >>>

We give two new characterizations of ($\F_2$-linear) locally testable error-correcting codes in terms of Cayley graphs over $\F_2^h$:

\begin{enumerate}
\item A locally testable code is equivalent to a Cayley graph over $\F_2^h$ whose set of generators is significantly larger than $h$ and has no short linear dependencies, but yields a ... more >>>

Locally testable codes are error-correcting codes that admit
very efficient codeword tests. Specifically, using a constant
number of (random) queries, non-codewords are rejected with
probability proportional to their distance from the code.

Locally testable codes are believed to be the combinatorial
core of PCPs. However, the relation is ... more >>>

Locally testable codes (LTCs) are error-correcting codes for which membership, in the code, of a given word can be tested by examining it in very few locations. Most known constructions of locally testable codes are linear codes, and give error-correcting codes
whose duals have (superlinearly) {\em many} small weight ... more >>>

Locally testable codes (LTC) are error-correcting codes that have a local tester which can distinguish valid codewords from words that are far from all codewords, by probing a given word only at a very small (sublinear, typically constant) number of locations. Such codes form the combinatorial backbone of PCPs. ... more >>>

A locally testable code (LTC) is an error correcting code that has a property-tester. The tester reads $q$ bits that are randomly chosen, and rejects words with probability proportional to their distance from the code. The parameter $q$ is called the locality of the tester.

LTCs were initially studied as ... more >>>

In this work we adapt the notion of non-malleability for codes or Dziembowski, Pietrzak and Wichs (ICS 2010) to locally testable codes. Roughly speaking, a locally testable code is non-malleable if any tampered codeword which passes the local test with good probability is close to a valid codeword which either ... more >>>

Tree codes, introduced in the seminal works of Schulman (STOC 93', IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 96') are codes designed for interactive communication. Encoding in a tree code is done in an online manner: the $i$-th codeword symbol depends only on the first $i$ message symbols. Codewords should have good ... more >>>

We study the relation between locally testable and locally decodable codes.
Locally testable codes (LTCs) are error-correcting codes for which membership of a given word in the code can be tested probabilistically by examining it in very few locations. Locally decodable codes (LDCs) allow to recover each message entry with ... more >>>

Let $f: \{0,1\}^n \to \{0, 1\}$ be a boolean function, and let $f_\land (x, y) = f(x \land y)$ denote the AND-function of $f$, where $x \land y$ denotes bit-wise AND. We study the deterministic communication complexity of $f_\land$ and show that, up to a $\log n$ factor, it is ... more >>>

There are only a few known general approaches for constructing explicit pseudorandom generators (PRGs). The ``iterated restrictions'' approach, pioneered by Ajtai and Wigderson [AW89], has provided PRGs with seed length $\mathrm{polylog} n$ or even $\tilde{O}(\log n)$ for several restricted models of computation. Can this approach ever achieve the optimal seed ... more >>>

The paper presents a simple construction of polynomial length universal
traversal sequences for cycles. These universal traversal sequences are
log-space (even $NC^1$) constructible and are of length $O(n^{4.03})$. Our
result improves the previously known upper-bound $O(n^{4.76})$ for
log-space constructible universal traversal sequences for cycles.

Algorithmic meta theorems are algorithmic results that apply to whole families of combinatorial problems, instead of just specific problems. These families are usually defined in terms of logic and graph theory. An archetypal algorithmic meta theorem is Courcelle's Theorem, which states that all graph properties definable in monadic second-order logic ... more >>>

We present a computable algorithm that assigns probabilities to every logical statement in a given formal language, and refines those probabilities over time. For instance, if the language is Peano arithmetic, it assigns probabilities to all arithmetical statements, including claims about the twin prime conjecture, the outputs of long-running ... more >>>

We define Kolmogorov complexity of a set of strings as the minimal
Kolmogorov complexity of its element. Consider three logical
operations on sets going back to Kolmogorov
and Kleene:
(A OR B) is the direct sum of A,B,
(A AND B) is the cartesian product of A,B,
more >>>

We invistigate what is the minimal length of
a program mapping A to B and at the same time
mapping C to D (where A,B,C,D are binary strings). We prove that
it cannot be expressed
in terms of Kolmogorv complexity of A,B,C,D, their pairs (A,B), (A,C),
..., their ... more >>>

This paper introduces logspace optimisation problems as
analogues of the well-studied polynomial-time optimisation
problems. Similarly to them, logspace
optimisation problems can have vastly different approximation
properties, even though the underlying existence and budget problems
have the same computational complexity. Numerous natural problems
are presented that exhibit such a varying ... more >>>

Directed reachability (or briefly reachability) is the following decision problem: given a directed graph G and two of its vertices s,t, determine whether there is a directed path from s to t in G. Directed reachability is a standard complete problem for the complexity class NL. Planar reachability is an ... more >>>

Bodlaender's Theorem states that for every $k$ there is a linear-time algorithm that decides whether an input graph has tree width~$k$ and, if so, computes a width-$k$ tree composition. Courcelle's Theorem builds on Bodlaender's Theorem and states that for every monadic second-order formula $\phi$ and for
every $k$ there is ... more >>>

Rice's Theorem says that every nontrivial semantic property
of programs is undecidable. It this spirit we show the following:
Every nontrivial absolute (gap, relative) counting property of circuits
is UP-hard with respect to polynomial-time Turing reductions.

For a vector space $\mathbb{F}^n$ over a field $\mathbb{F}$, an $(\eta,\beta)$-dimension expander of degree $d$ is a collection of $d$ linear maps $\Gamma_j : \mathbb{F}^n \to \mathbb{F}^n$ such that for every subspace $U$ of $\mathbb{F}^n$ of dimension at most $\eta n$, the image of $U$ under all the maps, $\sum_{j=1}^d ... more >>>

We propose a new general primitive called lossy trapdoor
functions (lossy TDFs), and realize it under a variety of different
number theoretic assumptions, including hardness of the decisional
Diffie-Hellman (DDH) problem and the worst-case hardness of
standard lattice problems.

Using lossy TDFs, we develop a new approach for constructing ... more >>>

In STOC '08, Peikert and Waters introduced a powerful new primitive called Lossy Trapdoor Functions (LTDFs). Since their introduction, lossy trapdoor functions have found many uses in cryptography. In the work of Peikert and Waters, lossy trapdoor functions were used to give an efficient construction of a chosen-ciphertext secure ... more >>>

We solve the derandomized direct product testing question in the low acceptance regime, by constructing new high dimensional expanders that have no small connected covers. We show that our complexes have swap cocycle expansion, which allows us to deduce the agreement theorem by relying on previous work.

Derandomized direct product ... more >>>

Nisan and Szegedy showed that low degree Boolean functions are juntas. Kindler and Safra showed that low degree functions which are *almost* Boolean are close to juntas. Their result holds with respect to $\mu_p$ for every *constant* $p$. When $p$ is allowed to be very small, new phenomena emerge. ... more >>>

In this work, we show that the class of multivariate degree-$d$ polynomials mapping $\{0,1\}^{n}$ to any Abelian group $G$ is locally correctable with $\widetilde{O}_{d}((\log n)^{d})$ queries for up to a fraction of errors approaching half the minimum distance of the underlying code. In particular, this result holds even for polynomials ... more >>>

We study the problem of testing whether a function $f: \mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{R}$ is a polynomial of degree at most $d$ in the distribution-free testing model. Here, the distance between functions is measured with respect to an unknown distribution $\mathcal{D}$ over $\mathbb{R}^n$ from which we can draw samples. In contrast ... more >>>

The Hamming and the edit metrics are two common notions of measuring distances between pairs of strings $x,y$ lying in the Boolean hypercube. The edit distance between $x$ and $y$ is defined as the minimum number of character insertion, deletion, and bit flips needed for converting $x$ into $y$. ... more >>>

Locally testable codes (LTCs) are error-correcting codes for which membership of a given word in the code can be tested probabilistically by examining it in very few locations.
Kaufman and Sudan \cite{KS07} proved that sparse, low-bias linear codes are locally testable (in particular sparse random codes are locally testable).
Kopparty ... more >>>

In the setting known as DLOGTIME-uniformity,
the fundamental complexity classes
$AC^0\subset ACC^0\subseteq TC^0\subseteq NC^1$ have several
robust characterizations.
In this paper we refine uniformity further and examine the impact
of these refinements on $NC^1$ and its subclasses.
When applied to the logarithmic circuit depth characterization of $NC^1$,
some refinements leave ... more >>>

Cryptographic hash functions are efficiently computable functions that shrink a long input into a shorter output while achieving some of the useful security properties of a random function. The most common type of such hash functions is {\em collision resistant} hash functions (CRH), which prevent an efficient attacker from finding ... more >>>

We prove that random low-degree polynomials (over $\mathbb{F}_2$) are unbiased, in an extremely general sense. That is, we show that random low-degree polynomials are good randomness extractors for a wide class of distributions. Prior to our work, such results were only known for the small families of (1) uniform sources, ... more >>>

We continue a line of work on extracting random bits from weak sources that are generated by simple processes. We focus on the model of locally samplable sources, where each bit in the source depends on a small number of (hidden) uniformly random input bits. Also known as local sources, ... more >>>

We define tests of boolean functions which
distinguish between linear (or quadratic) polynomials, and functions
which are very far, in an appropriate sense, from these
polynomials. The tests have optimal or nearly optimal trade-offs
between soundness and the number of queries.

In particular, we show that functions with small ... more >>>

We prove super-polynomial lower bounds for low-depth arithmetic circuits using the shifted partials measure [Gupta-Kamath-Kayal-Saptharishi, CCC 2013], [Kayal, ECCC 2012] and the affine projections of partials measure [Garg-Kayal-Saha, FOCS 2020], [Kayal-Nair-Saha, STACS 2016]. The recent breakthrough work of Limaye, Srinivasan and Tavenas [FOCS 2021] proved these lower bounds by proving ... more >>>

We present improved uniform TC$^0$ circuits for division, matrix powering, and related problems, where the improvement is in terms of ``majority depth'' (initially studied by Maciel and Therien). As a corollary, we obtain improved bounds on the complexity of certain problems involving arithmetic circuits, which are known to lie in ... more >>>

Antunes, Fortnow, van Melkebeek and Vinodchandran captured the
notion of non-random information by computational depth, the
difference between the polynomial-time-bounded Kolmogorov
complexity and traditional Kolmogorov complexity We show how to
find satisfying assignments for formulas that have at least one
assignment of logarithmic depth. The converse holds under a
standard ... 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 construct explicit two-source extractors for $n$ bit sources,
requiring $n^\alpha$ min-entropy and having error $2^{-n^\beta}$,
for some constants $0 < \alpha,\beta < 1$. Previously, constructions
for exponentially small error required either min-entropy
$0.49n$ \cite{Bou05} or three sources \cite{Li15}. The construction
combines somewhere-random condensers based on the Incidence
Theorem \cite{Zuc06,Li11}, ... more >>>

We provide new query complexity separations against sensitivity for total Boolean functions: a power 3 separation between deterministic (and even randomized or quantum) query complexity and sensitivity, and a power 2.1 separation between certificate complexity and sensitivity. We get these separations by using a new connection between sensitivity and a ... more >>>

We give a self contained proof of a logarithmic lower bound on the communication complexity of any non redundant function, given that there is no access to shared randomness. This bound was first stated in Yao's seminal paper [STOC 1979], but no full proof appears in the literature.

Our proof ... more >>>

We prove that to estimate within a constant factor the number of defective items in a non-adaptive group testing algorithm we need at least $\tilde\Omega((\log n)(\log(1/\delta)))$ tests. This solves the open problem posed by Damaschke and Sheikh Muhammad.

The sign-rank of a matrix $A$ with $\pm 1$ entries is the smallest rank of a real matrix with the same sign pattern as $A$. To the best of our knowledge, there are only three known methods for proving lower bounds on the sign-rank of explicit matrices: (i) Sign-rank is ... more >>>

The power symmetric polynomial on $n$ variables of degree $d$ is defined as
$p_d(x_1,\ldots, x_n) = x_{1}^{d}+\dots + x_{n}^{d}$. We study polynomials that are expressible as a sum of powers
of homogenous linear projections of power symmetric polynomials. These form a subclass of polynomials computed by
... more >>>

A family of Boolean circuits $\{C_n\}_{n\geq 0}$ is called \emph{$\gamma(n)$-weakly uniform} if
there is a polynomial-time algorithm for deciding the direct-connection language of every $C_n$,
given \emph{advice} of size $\gamma(n)$. This is a relaxation of the usual notion of uniformity, which allows one
to interpolate between complete uniformity (when $\gamma(n)=0$) ... more >>>

Much work has been done on learning various classes of ``simple'' monotone functions under the uniform distribution. In this paper we give the first unconditional lower bounds for learning problems of this sort by showing that polynomial-time algorithms cannot learn constant-depth monotone Boolean formulas under the uniform distribution in the ... more >>>

We investigate the power of Non-commutative Arithmetic Circuits, which compute polynomials over the free non-commutative polynomial ring $\mathbb{F}\langle x_1,\dots,x_N \rangle$, where variables do not commute. We consider circuits that are restricted in the ways in which they can compute monomials: this can be seen as restricting the families of parse ... more >>>

We prove an exponential lower bound for the size of constant depth multilinear arithmetic circuits computing either the determinant or the permanent (a circuit is called multilinear, if the polynomial computed by each of its gates is multilinear). We also prove a super-polynomial separation between the size of product-depth $d$ ... more >>>

Modular gates are known to be immune for the random
restriction techniques of Ajtai; Furst, Saxe, Sipser; and Yao and
Hastad. We demonstrate here a random clustering technique which
overcomes this difficulty and is capable to prove generalizations of
several known modular circuit lower bounds of Barrington, Straubing,
Therien; Krause ... more >>>

Comparator circuits are a natural circuit model for studying the concept of bounded fan-out computations, which intuitively corresponds to whether or not a computational model can make "copies" of intermediate computational steps. Comparator circuits are believed to be weaker than general Boolean circuits, but they can simulate Branching Programs and ... more >>>

A locally correctable code (LCC) is an error correcting code that allows correction of any arbitrary coordinate of a corrupted codeword by querying only a few coordinates.
We show that any zero-error $2$-query locally correctable code $\mathcal{C}: \{0,1\}^k \to \Sigma^n$ that can correct a constant fraction of corrupted symbols must ... more >>>

The notion of online space complexity, introduced by Karp in 1967, quantifies the amount of states required to solve a given problem using an online algorithm,
represented by a machine which scans the input exactly once from left to right.
In this paper, we study alternating machines as introduced by ... more >>>

We study an approximate version of $q$-query LDCs (Locally Decodable Codes) over the real numbers and prove lower bounds on the encoding length of such codes. A $q$-query $(\alpha,\delta)$-approximate LDC is a set $V$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ so that, for each $i \in [d]$ there are $\Omega(\delta n)$ ... more >>>

We prove that any extended formulation that approximates the matching polytope on $n$-vertex graphs up to a factor of $(1+\varepsilon)$ for any $\frac2n \le \varepsilon \le 1$ must have at least ${n}\choose{{\alpha}/{\varepsilon}}$ defining inequalities where $0<\alpha<1$ is an absolute constant. This is tight as exhibited by the $(1+\varepsilon)$ approximating linear ... more >>>

We study the complexity of representing polynomials by arithmetic circuits in both the commutative and the non-commutative settings. Our approach goes through a precise understanding of the more restricted setting where multiplication is not associative, meaning that we distinguish $(xy)z$ from $x(yz)$.

Our first and main conceptual result is a ... more >>>

We consider bounded depth circuits over an arbitrary field $K$. If the field $K$ is finite, then we allow arbitrary gates $K^n\to K$. For instance, in the case of field $GF(2)$ we allow any Boolean gates. If the field $K$ is infinite, then we allow only polinomials.

For every fixed ... more >>>

We present a simple proof of the bounded-depth Frege lower bounds of
Pitassi et. al. and Krajicek et. al. for the pigeonhole
principle. Our method uses the interpretation of proofs as two player
games given by Pudlak and Buss. Our lower bound is conceptually
simpler than previous ones, and relies ... more >>>

We consider Boolean circuits over $\{\lor,\land,\neg\}$ with negations applied only to input variables. To measure the ``amount of negation'' in such circuits, we introduce the concept of their ``negation width.'' In particular, a circuit computing a monotone Boolean function $f(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$ has negation width $w$ if no nonzero term produced (purely ... more >>>

We prove that any AC0 circuit augmented with {epsilon log^2 n}
MOD_m gates and with a MAJORITY gate at the output, require size
n^{Omega(log n)} to compute MOD_l, when l has a prime
factor not dividing m and epsilon is sufficiently small. We
also obtain ... more >>>

We say an integer polynomial $p$, on Boolean inputs, weakly
$m$-represents a Boolean function $f$ if $p$ is non-constant and is zero (mod
$m$), whenever $f$ is zero. In this paper we prove that if a polynomial
weakly $m$-represents the Mod$_q$ function on $n$ inputs, where $q$ and $m$
more >>>

We prove an $\omega(\log n)$ lower bound on the conondeterministic communication complexity of the Clique vs. Independent Set problem introduced by Yannakakis (STOC 1988, JCSS 1991). As a corollary, this implies superpolynomial lower bounds for the Alon--Saks--Seymour conjecture in graph theory. Our approach is to first exhibit a query complexity ... more >>>

Affine-invariant codes are codes whose coordinates form a vector space over a finite field and which are invariant under affine transformations of the coordinate space. They form a natural, well-studied class of codes; they include popular codes such as Reed-Muller and Reed-Solomon. A particularly appealing feature of affine-invariant codes is ... more >>>

Let $f:\{0,1\}^{n}\to\{0,1\}^{m}$ be a function computable by a circuit with
unbounded fan-in, arbitrary gates, $w$ wires and depth $d$. With
a very simple argument we show that the $m$-query problem corresponding
to $f$ has data structures with space $s=n+r$ and time $(w/r)^{d}$,
for any $r$. As a consequence, in the ... more >>>

We study the arithmetic complexity of iterated matrix multiplication. We show that any multilinear homogeneous depth $4$ arithmetic formula computing the product of $d$ generic matrices of size $n \times n$, IMM$_{n,d}$, has size $n^{\Omega(\sqrt{d})}$ as long as $d \leq n^{1/10}$. This improves the result of Nisan and Wigderson (Computational ... more >>>

We study the class of homogenous $\Sigma\Pi\Sigma\Pi(r)$ circuits, which are depth 4 homogenous circuits with top fanin bounded by $r$. We show that any homogenous $\Sigma\Pi\Sigma\Pi(r)$ circuit computing the permanent of an $n\times n$ matrix must have size at least $\exp\left(n^{\Omega(1/r)}\right)$.

In a recent result, Gupta, Kamath, Kayal and ... more >>>

Shpilka and Wigderson (CCC 1999) had posed the problem of proving exponential lower bounds for (nonhomogeneous) depth three arithmetic circuits with bounded bottom fanin over a field $\mathbb{F}$ of characteristic zero. We resolve this problem by proving a $N^{\Omega(\frac{d}{\tau})}$ lower bound for (nonhomogeneous) depth three arithmetic circuits with bottom fanin ... more >>>

A design is a finite set of points in a space on which every "simple" functions averages to its global mean. Illustrative examples of simple functions are low-degree polynomials on the Euclidean sphere or on the Hamming cube.

We prove lower bounds on designs in spaces with a large group ... more >>>

In this work, we study privacy-preserving storage primitives that are suitable for use in data analysis on outsourced databases within the differential privacy framework. The goal in differentially private data analysis is to disclose global properties of a group without compromising any individual’s privacy. Typically, differentially private adversaries only ever ... more >>>

The relativized weak pigeonhole principle states that if at least $2n$ out of $n^2$ pigeons fly into $n$ holes, then some hole must be doubly occupied. We prove that every DNF-refutation of the CNF encoding of this principle requires size $2^{(\log n)^{3/2-\epsilon}}$ for every $\epsilon > 0$ and every sufficiently ... more >>>

We consider the problem of elimination in communication complexity, that was first raised by Ambainis et al. and later studied by Beimel et al. for its connection to the famous direct sum question. In this problem, let $f:\{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ be any boolean function. Alice and Bob get $k$ inputs ... more >>>

Among others, refining the methods of [Fortnow and Santhanam, ECCC Report TR07-096] we improve a result of this paper and show for any parameterized problem with a ``linear weak OR'' and with NP-hard underlying classical problem that there is no polynomial reduction from the problem to itself that assigns to ... more >>>

We demonstrate a lower bound technique for linear decision lists, which are decision lists where the queries are arbitrary linear threshold functions.
We use this technique to prove an explicit lower bound by showing that any linear decision list computing the function $MAJ \circ XOR$ requires size $2^{0.18 n}$. This ... more >>>

We prove that if a linear error correcting code
$\C:\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}^m$ is such that a bit of the message can
be probabilistically reconstructed by looking at two entries of a
corrupted codeword, then $m = 2^{\Omega(n)}$. We also present
several extensions of this result.

We show a reduction from the ... more >>>

Linear Transformed Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (LTOBDDs) have
been suggested as a generalization of OBDDs for the representation and
manipulation of Boolean functions. Instead of variables as in the
case of OBDDs parities of variables may be tested at the nodes of an
LTOBDD. By this extension it is ... more >>>

The problem of finding a local minimum of a black-box function is central
for understanding local search as well as quantum adiabatic algorithms.
For functions on the Boolean hypercube {0,1}^n, we show a lower bound of
Omega(2^{n/4}/n) on the number of queries needed by a quantum computer to
solve this ... more >>>

We prove that an \omega(log^3 n) lower bound for the three-party number-on-the-forehead (NOF) communication complexity of the set-disjointness function implies an n^\omega(1) size lower bound for tree-like Lovasz-Schrijver systems that refute unsatisfiable CNFs. More generally, we prove that an n^\Omega(1) lower bound for the (k+1)-party NOF communication complexity of set-disjointness ... more >>>

We study the problem of constructing explicit families of matrices which cannot be expressed as a product of a few sparse matrices. In addition to being a natural mathematical question on its own, this problem appears in various incarnations in computer science; the most significant being in the context of ... more >>>

We prove lower bounds on the number of product gates in bilinear
and quadratic circuits that
compute the product of two $n \times n$ matrices over finite fields.
In particular we obtain the following results:

1. We show that the number of product gates in any bilinear
(or quadratic) ... more >>>

We prove super-linear lower bounds for the number of edges
in constant depth circuits with $n$ inputs and up to $n$ outputs.
Our lower bounds are proved for all types of constant depth
circuits, e.g., constant depth arithmetic circuits, constant depth
threshold circuits ... more >>>

Valiant (1980) showed that general arithmetic circuits with negation can be exponentially more powerful than monotone ones. We give the first qualitative improvement to this classical result: we construct a family of polynomials $P_n$ in $n$ variables, each of its monomials has positive coefficient, such that $P_n$ can be computed ... more >>>

A {+,x}-circuit counts a given multivariate polynomial f, if its values on 0-1 inputs are the same as those of f; on other inputs the circuit may output arbitrary values. Such a circuit counts the number of monomials of evaluated to 1 by a given 0-1 input vector (with multiplicities ... more >>>

Using a notion of real communication complexity recently
introduced by J. Krajicek, we prove a lower bound on the depth of
monotone real circuits and the size of monotone real formulas for
st-connectivity. This implies a super-polynomial speed-up of dag-like
over tree-like Cutting Planes proofs.

The model of span programs is a linear algebraic model of
computation. Lower bounds for span programs imply lower bounds for
contact schemes, symmetric branching programs and for formula size.
Monotone span programs correspond also to linear secret-sharing schemes.
We present a new technique for proving lower bounds for ... more >>>

We consider the $k$-layer pointer jumping problem in the one-way
multi-party number-on-the-forehead communication model. In this problem,
the input is a layered directed graph with each vertex having outdegree
$1$, shared amongst $k$ players: Player~$i$ knows all layers {\em
except} the $i$th. The players must communicate, in the order
$1,2,\ldots,k$, ... more >>>

The paper is devoted to lower bounds on the time complexity of DPLL algorithms that solve the satisfiability problem using a splitting strategy. Exponential lower bounds on the running time of DPLL algorithms on unsatisfiable formulas follow from the lower bounds for resolution proofs. Lower bounds on satisfiable instances are ... more >>>

We show new lower bounds and impossibility results for general (possibly <i>non-black-box</i>) zero-knowledge proofs and arguments. Our main results are that, under reasonable complexity assumptions:
<ol>
<li> There does not exist a two-round zero-knowledge <i>proof</i> system with perfect completeness for an NP-complete language. The previous impossibility result for two-round zero ... more >>>

We show that the k-CSP problem over a finite Abelian group G
cannot be approximated within |G|^{k-O(sqrt{k})}-epsilon, for
any constant epsilon>0, unless P=NP. This lower bound matches
well with the best known upper bound, |G|^{k-1}, of Serna,
Trevisan and Xhafa. The proof uses a combination of PCP
techniques---most notably a ... more >>>

Nisan (STOC 1991) exhibited a polynomial which is computable by linear sized non-commutative circuits but requires exponential sized non-commutative algebraic branching programs. Nisan's hard polynomial is in fact computable by linear sized skew circuits (skew circuits are circuits where every multiplication gate has the property that all but one of ... more >>>

We present a new boolean function for which any Ordered Binary
Decision Diagram (OBDD) computing it has an exponential number
of nodes. This boolean function is obtained from Nisan's
pseudorandom generator to derandomize space bounded randomized
algorithms. Though the relation between hardness and randomness for
computational models is well ... more >>>

We prove an $\Omega(d \lg n/ (\lg\lg n)^2)$ lower bound on the dynamic cell-probe complexity of statistically $\mathit{oblivious}$ approximate-near-neighbor search (ANN) over the $d$-dimensional Hamming cube. For the natural setting of $d = \Theta(\log n)$, our result implies an $\tilde{\Omega}(\lg^2 n)$ lower bound, which is a quadratic improvement over the ... more >>>

Arithmetic circuits are a natural well-studied model for computing multivariate polynomials over a field. In this paper, we study planar arithmetic circuits. These are circuits whose underlying graph is planar. In particular, we prove an $\Omega(n\log n)$ lower bound on the size of planar arithmetic circuits computing explicit bilinear forms ... more >>>

For every prime p > 0, every n > 0 and ? = O(logn), we show the existence
of an unsatisfiable system of polynomial equations over O(n log n) variables of degree O(log n) such that any Polynomial Calculus refutation over F_p with M extension variables, each depending on at ... more >>>

For each natural number $d$ we consider a finite structure ${\bf M}_{d}$ whose universe is the set of all $0,1$-sequence of length $n=2^{d}$, each representing a natural number in the set $\lbrace 0,1,...,2^{n}-1\rbrace$ in binary form. The operations included in the structure are the four constants $0,1,2^{n}-1,n$, multiplication and addition ... more >>>

The proof system resolution over parities (Res($\oplus$)) operates with disjunctions of linear equations (linear clauses) over $\mathbb{F}_2$; it extends the resolution proof system by incorporating linear algebra over $\mathbb{F}_2$. Over the years, several exponential lower bounds on the size of tree-like Res($\oplus$) refutations have been established. However, proving a superpolynomial ... more >>>

Suppose that a distribution $S$ can be approximately sampled by an
efficient cell-probe algorithm. It is shown to be possible to restrict
the input to the algorithm so that its output distribution is still
not too far from $S$, and at the same time many output coordinates
are almost pairwise ... more >>>

We prove an exponential lower bound for expressing a polynomial as a sum of product of low arity polynomials. Specifically, we show that for the iterated matrix multiplication polynomial, $IMM_{d, n}$ (corresponding to the product of $d$ matrices of size $n \times n$ each), any expression of the form
more >>>

We consider the problem of testing bipartiteness in the adjacency
matrix model. The best known algorithm, due to Alon and Krivelevich,
distinguishes between bipartite graphs and graphs that are
$\epsilon$-far from bipartite using $O((1/\epsilon^2)polylog(1/epsilon)$
queries. We show that this is optimal for non-adaptive algorithms,
up to the ... more >>>

We introduce strong, and in many cases optimal, lower bounds for the number of queries required to nonadaptively test three fundamental properties of functions $ f : [n]^d \rightarrow \mathbb R$ on the hypergrid: monotonicity, convexity, and the Lipschitz property.
Our lower bounds also apply to the more restricted setting ... more >>>

Let $f_{1},f_{2}, f_{3}:\mathbb{F}_{2}^{n} \to \{0,1\}$ be three Boolean functions.
We say a triple $(x,y,x+y)$ is a \emph{triangle} in the function-triple $(f_{1}, f_{2}, f_{3})$ if $f_{1}(x)=f_{2}(y)=f_{3}(x+y)=1$.
$(f_{1}, f_{2}, f_{3})$ is said to be \emph{triangle-free} if there is no triangle in the triple. The distance between a function-triple
and ... more >>>

We describe a new hardness amplification result for point-wise approximation of Boolean functions by low-degree polynomials. Specifically, for any function $f$ on $N$ bits, define $F(x_1, \dots, x_M) = \text{OMB}(f(x_1), \dots, f(x_M))$ to be the function on $M \cdot N$ bits obtained by block-composing $f$ with a specific DNF known ... more >>>

In this paper
we associate to each multivariate polynomial $f$ that is homogeneous relative to a subset of its variables a series of polynomial families $P_\lambda (f)$ of $m$-tuples of homogeneous polynomials of equal degree such that the circuit size of any member in $P_\lambda (f)$ is bounded from above ... more >>>

We investigate the computational power of a formal model for networks of
spiking neurons. It is shown that simple operations on phase-differences
between spike-trains provide a very powerful computational tool that can
in principle be used to carry out highly complex computations on a small
network of spiking neurons. We ... more >>>

We investigate the probabilistic communication complexity
(more exactly, the majority communication complexity,)
of the graph accessibility problem GAP and
its counting versions MOD_k-GAP, k > 1.
Due to arguments concerning matrix variation ranks
and certain projection reductions, we prove
that, for any partition of the input variables,
more >>>

Razborov~\cite{Razborov96} recently proved that polynomial
calculus proofs of the pigeonhole principle $PHP_n^m$ must have
degree at least $\ceiling{n/2}+1$ over any field. We present a
simplified proof of the same result. The main
idea of our proof is the same as in the original proof
of Razborov: we want to describe ... more >>>

We prove the first lower bound for restricted read-once parity branching
programs with unlimited parity nondeterminism where for each input the
variables may be tested according to several orderings.

Proving a superpolynomial lower bound for read-once parity branching
programs is still a challenging open problem. The following variant ... more >>>

We introduce a new model for testing graph properties which we call the \emph{rejection sampling model}. We show that testing bipartiteness of $n$-nodes graphs using rejection sampling queries requires complexity $\widetilde{\Omega}(n^2)$. Via reductions from the rejection sampling model, we give three new lower bounds for tolerant testing of Boolean functions ... more >>>

Tropical circuits are circuits with Min and Plus, or Max and Plus operations as gates. Their importance stems from their intimate relation to dynamic programming algorithms. The power of tropical circuits lies somewhere between that of monotone boolean circuits and monotone arithmetic circuits. In this paper we present some lower ... more >>>

We use results from communication complexity, both new and old ones, to prove lower bounds for unambiguous finite automata (UFAs). We show three results.

$\textbf{Complement:}$ There is a language $L$ recognised by an $n$-state UFA such that the complement language $\overline{L}$ requires NFAs with $n^{\tilde{\Omega}(\log n)}$ states. This improves on ... more >>>

It has been observed empirically that clause learning does not significantly improve the performance of a SAT solver when restricted
to learning clauses of small width only. This experience is supported by lower bound theorems. It is shown that lower bounds on the runtime of width-restricted clause learning follow from ... more >>>

The Forrelation problem, first introduced by Aaronson [AA10] and Aaronson and Ambainis [AA15], is a well studied computational problem in the context of separating quantum and classical computational models. Variants of this problem were used to give tight separations between quantum and classical query complexity [AA15]; the first separation between ... 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 >>>

We study time/memory tradeoffs of function inversion: an algorithm, i.e., an inverter, equipped with an $s$-bit advice for a randomly chosen function $f\colon [n] \mapsto [n]$ and using $q$ oracle queries to $f$, tries to invert a randomly chosen output $y$ of $f$ (i.e., to find $x$ such that $f(x)=y$). ... more >>>

There are various notions of balancing set families that appear in combinatorics and computer science. For example, a family of proper non-empty subsets $S_1,\ldots,S_k \subset [n]$ is balancing if for every subset $X \subset \{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ of size $n/2$, there is an $i \in [k]$ so that $|S_i \cap X| = ... 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 >>>

We show that almost all known lower bound methods for communication complexity are also lower bounds for the information complexity. In particular, we define a relaxed version of the partition bound of Jain and Klauck and prove that it lower bounds the information complexity of any function. Our relaxed partition ... more >>>

We formulate a new connection between instance compressibility \cite{Harnik-Naor10}), where the compressor uses circuits from a class $\C$, and correlation with
circuits in $\C$. We use this connection to prove the first lower bounds
on general probabilistic multi-round instance compression. We show that there
is no
probabilistic multi-round ... more >>>

This paper is motivated by seeking lower bounds on OBDD($\land$, weakening, reordering) refutations, namely OBDD refutations that allow weakening and arbitrary reorderings. We first work with 1-NBP($\land$) refutations based on read-once nondeterministic branching programs. These generalize OBDD($\land$, reordering) refutations. There are polynomial size 1-NBP($\land$) refutations of the pigeonhole principle, hence ... more >>>

The stabilizer rank of a quantum state $\psi$ is the minimal $r$ such that $\left| \psi \right \rangle = \sum_{j=1}^r c_j \left|\varphi_j \right\rangle$ for $c_j \in \mathbb{C}$ and stabilizer states $\varphi_j$. The running time of several classical simulation methods for quantum circuits is determined by the stabilizer rank of the ... more >>>

We calculate lower bounds on the size of sigmoidal neural networks
that approximate continuous functions. In particular, we show that
for the approximation of polynomials the network size has to grow
as $\Omega((\log k)^{1/4})$ where $k$ is the degree of the polynomials.
This bound is ... more >>>

Alice and Bob want to know if two strings of length $n$ are
almost equal. That is, do they differ on at most $a$ bits?
Let $0\le a\le n-1$.
We show that any deterministic protocol, as well as any
error-free quantum protocol ($C^*$ version), for this problem
requires at ... more >>>

We present lower bounds on the efficiency of
constructions for Pseudo-Random Generators (PRGs) and
Universal One-Way Hash Functions (UOWHFs) based on
black-box access to one-way permutations. Our lower bounds are tight as
they match the efficiency of known constructions.

A PRG (resp. UOWHF) construction based on black-box access is
a ... more >>>

We consider indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) for multi-output circuits $C:\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}^n$ of size s, where s is the number of AND/OR/NOT gates in C. Under the worst-case assumption that NP $\nsubseteq$ BPP, we establish that there is no efficient indistinguishability obfuscation scheme that outputs circuits of size $s + o(s/ \log s)$. ... more >>>

Hardness amplification results show that for every function $f$ there exists a function $Amp(f)$ such that the following holds: if every circuit of size $s$ computes $f$ correctly on at most a $1-\delta$ fraction of inputs, then every circuit of size $s'$ computes $Amp(f)$ correctly on at most a $1/2+\eps$ ... more >>>

We prove lower bounds on the randomized two-party communication complexity of functions that arise from read-once boolean formulae.

A read-once boolean formula is a formula in propositional logic with the property that every variable appears exactly once. Such a formula can be represented by a tree, where the leaves correspond ... more >>>

We consider the univariate polynomial $f_d:=(x+1)^d$ when represented as a sum of constant-powers of univariate polynomials. We define a natural measure for the model, the support-union, and conjecture that it is $\Omega(d)$ for $f_d$.

We show a stunning connection of the conjecture to the two main problems in algebraic ... more >>>

Motivated by the resurgence of neural networks in being able to solve complex learning tasks we undertake a study of high depth networks using ReLU gates which implement the function $x \mapsto \max\{0,x\}$. We try to understand the role of depth in such neural networks by showing size lowerbounds against ... more >>>

In this paper we study the Boolean Knapsack problem (KP$_{{\bf R}}$)
$a^Tx=1$, $x \in \{0,1\}^n$ with real coefficients, in the framework
of the Blum-Shub-Smale real number computational model \cite{BSS}.
We obtain a new lower bound
$\Omega \left( n\log n\right) \cdot f(1/a_{\min})$ for the time
complexity ... more >>>

A general and long-standing belief in the proof complexity community asserts that there is a close connection between progress in lower bounds for Boolean circuits and progress in proof size lower bounds for strong propositional proof systems. Although there are famous examples where a transfer from ideas and techniques from ... more >>>