Suppose each of $k \le n^{o(1)}$ players holds an $n$-bit number $x_i$ in its hand. The players wish to determine if $\sum_{i \le k} x_i = s$. We give a public-coin protocol with error $1\%$ and communication $O(k \lg k)$. The communication bound is independent of $n$, and for $k ... more >>>

We bound the minimum number $w$ of wires needed to compute any (asymptotically good) error-correcting code
$C:\{0,1\}^{\Omega(n)} \to \{0,1\}^n$ with minimum distance $\Omega(n)$,
using unbounded fan-in circuits of depth $d$ with arbitrary gates. Our main results are:

(1) If $d=2$ then $w = \Theta(n ({\log n/ \log \log n})^2)$.

(2) ... more >>>

The 3SUM problem asks if there are three integers $a,b,c$ summing to $0$ in a given set of $n$ integers of magnitude poly($n$). Patrascu (STOC '10) reduces solving 3SUM in time $n^{2-\Omega(1)}$ to listing $m$ triangles in a graph with $m$ edges in time $m^{4/3-\Omega(1)}$.
In this note we present ... more >>>

We put forth several simple candidate pseudorandom functions f_k : {0,1}^n -> {0,1} with security (a.k.a. hardness) 2^n that are inspired by the AES block-cipher by Daemen and Rijmen (2000). The functions are computable more efficiently, and use a shorter key (a.k.a. seed) than previous
constructions. In particular, we ... more >>>

We obtain the first deterministic extractors for sources generated (or sampled) by small circuits of bounded depth. Our main results are:

(1) We extract $k (k/nd)^{O(1)}$ bits with exponentially small error from $n$-bit sources of min-entropy $k$ that are generated by functions $f : \{0,1\}^\ell \to \{0,1\}^n$ where each output ... more >>>

We report on some initial results of a brute-force search for determining the maximum correlation between degree-$d$ polynomials modulo $p$ and the $n$-bit mod $q$ function. For various settings of the parameters $n,d,p,$ and $q$, our results indicate that symmetric polynomials yield the maximum correlation. This contrasts with the previously-analyzed ... more >>>

The {\em hybrid argument}
allows one to relate
the {\em distinguishability} of a distribution (from
uniform) to the {\em
predictability} of individual bits given a prefix. The
argument incurs a loss of a factor $k$ equal to the
bit-length of the
distributions: $\epsilon$-distinguishability implies only
$\epsilon/k$-predictability. ... more >>>

We show that the promise problem of distinguishing $n$-bit strings of hamming weight $\ge 1/2 + \Omega(1/\log^{d-1} n)$ from strings of weight $\le 1/2 - \Omega(1/\log^{d-1} n)$ can be solved by explicit, randomized (unbounded-fan-in) poly(n)-size depth-$d$ circuits with error $\le 1/3$, but cannot be solved by deterministic poly(n)-size depth-$(d+1)$ circuits, ... more >>>

We study a variant of the classical circuit-lower-bound problems: proving lower bounds for sampling distributions given random bits. We prove a lower bound of $1-1/n^{\Omega(1)}$ on the statistical distance between (i) the output distribution of any small constant-depth (a.k.a.~$\mathrm{AC}^0$) circuit $f : \{0,1\}^{\mathrm{poly}(n)} \to \{0,1\}^n$, and (ii) the uniform distribution ... more >>>

Complexity theory typically studies the complexity of computing a function $h(x) : \{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}^m$ of a given input $x$. We advocate the study of the complexity of generating the distribution $h(x)$ for uniform $x$, given random bits.

Our main results are:

\begin{itemize}
\item There are explicit $AC^0$ circuits of ... more >>>

We prove that to store n bits x so that each
prefix-sum query Sum(i) := sum_{k < i} x_k can be answered
by non-adaptively probing q cells of log n bits, one needs
memory > n + n/log^{O(q)} n.

Our bound matches a recent upper bound of n +
n/log^{Omega(q)} ... more >>>

We prove that to store n bits x so that each
prefix-sum query Sum(i) := sum_{k < i} x_k can be answered
by non-adaptively probing q cells of log n bits, one needs
memory > n + n/log^{O(q)} n.

Our bound matches a recent upper bound of n +
n/log^{Omega(q)} ... more >>>

We show that any distribution on {-1,1}^n that is k-wise independent fools any halfspace h with error \eps for k = O(\log^2(1/\eps)/\eps^2). Up to logarithmic factors, our result matches a lower bound by Benjamini, Gurel-Gurevich, and Peled (2007) showing that k = \Omega(1/(\eps^2 \cdot \log(1/\eps))). Using standard constructions of k-wise ... more >>>

We prove lower bounds on the redundancy necessary to
represent a set $S$ of objects using a number of bits
close to the information-theoretic minimum $\log_2 |S|$,
while answering various queries by probing few bits. Our
main results are:

\begin{itemize}
\item To represent $n$ ternary values $t \in
\zot^n$ in ... more >>>

We prove that the sum of $d$ small-bias generators $L
: \F^s \to \F^n$ fools degree-$d$ polynomials in $n$
variables over a prime field $\F$, for any fixed
degree $d$ and field $\F$, including $\F = \F_2 =
{0,1}$.

Our result improves on both the work by Bogdanov and
Viola ... more >>>

Hardness amplification is the fundamental task of
converting a $\delta$-hard function $f : {0,1}^n ->
{0,1}$ into a $(1/2-\eps)$-hard function $Amp(f)$,
where $f$ is $\gamma$-hard if small circuits fail to
compute $f$ on at least a $\gamma$ fraction of the
inputs. Typically, $\eps,\delta$ are small (and
$\delta=2^{-k}$ captures the case ... more >>>

We give a self-contained exposition of selected results in additive
combinatorics over the group {0,1}^n. In particular, we prove the
celebrated theorems known as the Balog-Szemeredi-Gowers theorem ('94 and '98) and
the
Freiman-Ruzsa theorem ('73 and '99), leading to the remarkable result
by Samorodnitsky ('07) that linear transformations are efficiently ... more >>>

We present a new approach to constructing pseudorandom generators that fool low-degree polynomials over finite fields, based on the Gowers norm. Using this approach, we obtain the following main constructions of explicitly computable generators $G : \F^s \to \F^n$ that fool polynomials over a prime field $\F$:
\begin{enumerate}
\item a ... more >>>

In this paper we study the one-way multi-party communication model,
in which every party speaks exactly once in its turn. For every
fixed $k$, we prove a tight lower bound of
$\Omega{n^{1/(k-1)}}$ on the probabilistic communication
complexity of pointer jumping in a $k$-layered tree, where the
pointers of the $i$-th ... more >>>

We study the correlation between low-degree GF(2) polynomials p and explicit functions. Our main results are the following:

(I) We prove that the Mod_m unction on n bits has correlation at most exp(-Omega(n/4^d)) with any GF(2) polynomial of degree d, for any fixed odd integer m. This improves on the ... more >>>

We prove several new results regarding the relationship between probabilistic time, BPTime(t), and alternating time, \Sigma_{O(1)} Time(t). Our main results are the following:

1) We prove that BPTime(t) \subseteq \Sigma_3 Time(t polylog(t)). Previous results show that BPTime(t) \subseteq \Sigma_2 Time(t^2 log t) (Sipser and Gacs, STOC '83; Lautemann, IPL '83) ... more >>>

We study the complexity of arithmetic in finite fields of characteristic two, $\F_{2^n}$.
We concentrate on the following two problems:

Iterated Multiplication: Given $\alpha_1, \alpha_2,..., \alpha_t \in \F_{2^n}$, compute $\alpha_1 \cdot \alpha_2 \cdots \alpha_t \in \F_{2^n}$.

Exponentiation: Given $\alpha \in \F_{2^n}$ and a $t$-bit integer $k$, compute $\alpha^k \in \F_{2^n}$.

We exhibit an explicitly computable `pseudorandom' generator stretching $l$ bits into $m(l) = l^{\Omega(\log l)}$ bits that look random to constant-depth circuits of size $m(l)$ with $\log m(l)$ arbitrary symmetric gates (e.g. PARITY, MAJORITY). This improves on a generator by Luby, Velickovic and Wigderson (ISTCS '93) that achieves the same ... more >>>

We study the complexity of computing $k$-wise independent and
$\epsilon$-biased generators $G : \{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}^m$.
Specifically, we refer to the complexity of computing $G$ \emph{explicitly}, i.e.
given $x \in \{0,1\}^n$ and $i \in \{0,1\}^{\log m}$, computing the $i$-th output bit of $G(x)$.
Mansour, Nisan and Tiwari (1990) show that ... more >>>

We revisit the problem of hardness amplification in $\NP$, as
recently studied by O'Donnell (STOC `02). We prove that if $\NP$
has a balanced function $f$ such that any circuit of size $s(n)$
fails to compute $f$ on a $1/\poly(n)$ fraction of inputs, then
$\NP$ has a function $f'$ such ... more >>>

We study pseudorandom generator (PRG) constructions $G^f : {0,1}^l \to {0,1}^{l+s}$ from one-way functions $f : {0,1}^n \to {0,1}^m$. We consider PRG constructions of the form $G^f(x) = C(f(q_{1}) \ldots f(q_{poly(n)}))$
where $C$ is a polynomial-size constant depth circuit
and $C$ and the $q$'s are generated from $x$ arbitrarily.
more >>>

We study the complexity of building
pseudorandom generators (PRGs) from hard functions.

We show that, starting from a function f : {0,1}^l -> {0,1} that
is mildly hard on average, i.e. every circuit of size 2^Omega(l)
fails to compute f on at least a 1/poly(l)
fraction of inputs, we can ... more >>>