The problem of finding a nontrivial factor of a polynomial $f(x)$ over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ has many known efficient, but randomized, algorithms. The deterministic complexity of this problem is a famous open question even assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH). In this work we improve the state of the ... more >>>

Motivated by certain applications from physics, biochemistry, economics, and computer science in which the objects under investigation are unknown or not directly accessible because of various limitations, we propose a trial-and-error model to examine search problems with unknown inputs. Given a search problem with a hidden input, we are asked ... more >>>

Let two linear matroids have the same rank in matroid intersection.
A maximum linear matroid intersection (maximum linear matroid parity
set) is called a basic matroid intersection (basic matroid parity
set), if its size is the rank of the matroid. We present that
enumerating all basic matroid intersections (basic matroid ... 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 >>>

We develop a framework for proving lower bounds on computational problems over distributions, including optimization and unsupervised learning. Our framework is based on defining a restricted class of algorithms, called statistical algorithms, that instead of accessing samples from the input distribution can only obtain an estimate of the expectation of ... more >>>

Let $\mathcal{M}$ be a bridgeless matroid on ground set $\{1,\ldots, n\}$ and $f_{\mathcal{M}}: \{0,1\}^n \to \{0, 1\}$ be the indicator function of its independent sets. A folklore fact is that $f_\mathcal{M}$ is ``evasive," i.e., $D(f_\mathcal{M}) = n$ where $D(f)$ denotes the deterministic decision tree complexity of $f.$ Here we prove ... more >>>

We give an explicit function $h:\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}$ such that any deMorgan formula of size $O(n^{2.499})$ agrees with $h$ on at most $\frac{1}{2} + \epsilon$ fraction of the inputs, where $\epsilon$ is exponentially small (i.e. $\epsilon = 2^{-n^{\Omega(1)}}$). Previous lower bounds for formula size were obtained for exact computation.

The same technique ... more >>>

We give an example of a non-commutative monotone polynomial f which can be computed by a polynomial-size non-commutative formula, but every monotone non-commutative circuit computing f must have an exponential size. In the non-commutative setting this gives, a fortiori, an exponential separation between monotone and general formulas, monotone and general ... more >>>

Given a DNF formula $f$ on $n$ variables, the two natural size measures are the number of terms or size $s(f)$, and the maximum width of a term $w(f)$. It is folklore that short DNF formulas can be made narrow. We prove a converse, showing that narrow formulas can be ... more >>>

We explore the relationships between circuit complexity, the complexity of generating circuits, and circuit-analysis algorithms. Our results can be roughly divided into three parts:

1. Lower Bounds Against Medium-Uniform Circuits. Informally, a circuit class is ``medium uniform'' if it can be generated by an algorithmic process that is somewhat complex ... more >>>

Yao's garbled circuit construction transforms a boolean circuit $C:\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}^m$
into a ``garbled circuit'' $\hat{C}$ along with $n$ pairs of $k$-bit keys, one for each
input bit, such that $\hat{C}$ together with the $n$ keys
corresponding to an input $x$ reveal $C(x)$ and no additional information about $x$.
The garbled circuit ... more >>>

One powerful theme in complexity theory and pseudorandomness in the past few decades has been the use of lower bounds to give pseudorandom generators (PRGs). However, the general results using this hardness vs. randomness paradigm suffer a quantitative loss in parameters, and hence do not give nontrivial implications for models ... more >>>

We study the challenging problem of learning decision lists attribute-efficiently, giving both positive and negative results.

Our main positive result is a new tradeoff between the running time and mistake bound for learning length-$k$ decision lists over $n$ Boolean variables. When the allowed running time is relatively high, our new ... more >>>

We consider the problem of testing a basic property of collections of distributions: having similar means. Namely, the algorithm should accept collections of distributions in which all distributions have means that do not differ by more than some given parameter, and should reject collections that are relatively far from having ... more >>>

This paper is motivated by a conjecture that BPP can be characterized in terms of polynomial-time nonadaptive reductions to the set of Kolmogorov-random strings. In this paper we show that an approach laid out by [Allender et al] to settle this conjecture cannot succeed without significant alteration, but that it ... more >>>

Here, we give an algorithm for deciding if the nonnegative rank of a matrix $M$ of dimension $m \times n$ is at most $r$ which runs in time $(nm)^{O(r^2)}$. This is the first exact algorithm that runs in time singly-exponential in $r$. This algorithm (and earlier algorithms) are built on ... 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 a Chernoff-like large deviation bound on the sum of non-independent random variables that have the following dependence structure. The variables $Y_1,\ldots,Y_r$ are arbitrary Boolean functions of independent random variables $X_1,\ldots,X_m$, modulo a restriction that every $X_i$ influences at most $k$ of the variables $Y_1,\ldots,Y_r$.

A $(k,\epsilon)$-biased sample space is a distribution over $\{0,1\}^n$ that $\epsilon$-fools every nonempty linear test of size at most $k$. Since they were introduced by Naor and Naor [SIAM J. Computing, 1993], these sample spaces have become a central notion in theoretical computer science with a variety of applications.

When ... more >>>

We show that sparse affine-invariant linear properties over arbitrary finite fields are locally testable with a constant number of queries. Given a finite field ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ and an extension field ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^n}$, a property is a set of functions mapping ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^n}$ to ${\mathbb{F}}_q$. The property is said to be affine-invariant if it ... more >>>

We prove that the class of locally testable affine-invariant properties is closed under sums, intersections and "lifts". The sum and intersection are two natural operations on linear spaces of functions, where the sum of two properties is simply their sum as a vector space. The "lift" is a less natural ... more >>>

We obtain the first deterministic randomness extractors
for $n$-bit sources with min-entropy $\ge n^{1-\alpha}$
generated (or sampled) by single-tape Turing machines
running in time $n^{2-16 \alpha}$, for all sufficiently
small $\alpha > 0$. We also show that such machines
cannot sample a uniform $n$-bit input to the Inner
Product function ... more >>>

Over a finite field $\F_q$ the $(n,d,q)$-Reed-Muller code is the code given by evaluations of $n$-variate polynomials of total degree at most $d$ on all points (of $\F_q^n$). The task of testing if a function $f:\F_q^n \to \F_q$ is close to a codeword of an $(n,d,q)$-Reed-Muller code has been of ... more >>>

Probabilistically-Checkable Proofs (PCPs) form the algorithmic core that enables succinct verification of long proofs/computations in many cryptographic constructions, such as succinct arguments and proof-carrying data.

Despite the wonderful asymptotic savings they bring, PCPs are also the infamous computational bottleneck preventing these cryptographic constructions from being used in practice. This reflects ... 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 this work, we study the fundamental problem of constructing interactive protocols that are robust to noise, a problem that was originally considered in the seminal works of Schulman (FOCS '92, STOC '93), and has recently regained popularity. Robust interactive communication is the interactive analogue of error correcting codes: Given ... 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 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 >>>

In this paper, we study the approximability of Max CSP($P$) where $P$ is a Boolean predicate. We prove that assuming Khot's $d$-to-1 Conjecture, if the set of accepting inputs of $P$ strictly contains all inputs with even (or odd) parity, then it is NP-hard to approximate Max CSP($P$) better than ... more >>>

Motivated by its relation to the length of cutting plane proofs for the Maximum Biclique problem, here we consider the following communication game on a given graph G, known to both players. Let K be the maximal number of vertices in a complete bipartite subgraph of G (which is not ... 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 >>>

A basic question in any computational model is how to reliably compute a given function when the inputs or intermediate computations are subject to noise at a constant rate. Ideally, one would like to use at most a constant factor more resources compared to the noise-free case. This question has ... more >>>

We give a new construction of algebraic codes which are efficiently list decodable from a fraction $1-R-\epsilon$ of adversarial errors where $R$ is the rate of the code, for any desired positive constant $\epsilon$. The worst-case list size output by the algorithm is $O(1/\epsilon)$, matching the existential bound for random ... more >>>

(This is a revised version of work that was posted on arXiv in July 2010.)

We present sublinear-time (randomized) algorithms for finding simple cycles of length at least $k\geq3$ and tree-minors in bounded-degree graphs.
The complexity of these algorithms is related to the distance
of the graph from being ... more >>>

We prove new lower bounds on the encoding length of Matching Vector (MV) codes. These recently discovered families of Locally Decodable Codes (LDCs) originate in the works of Yekhanin [Yek] and Efremenko [Efr] and are the only known families of LDCs with a constant number of queries and sub-exponential encoding ... more >>>

Informally stated, we present here a randomized algorithm that given blackbox access to the polynomial $f$ computed by an unknown/hidden arithmetic formula $\phi$ reconstructs, on the average, an equivalent or smaller formula $\hat{\phi}$ in time polynomial in the size of its output $\hat{\phi}$.

Specifically, we consider arithmetic formulas wherein the ... more >>>

We consider the problem of finding interval representations of graphs that additionally respect given interval lengths and/or pairwise intersection lengths, which are represented as weight functions on the vertices and edges, respectively. Pe'er and Shamir proved that the problem is NP-complete if only the former are given [SIAM J. Discr. ... more >>>

Let $f:\{-1,1\}^n \to \mathbb{R}$ be a real function on the hypercube, given
by its discrete Fourier expansion, or, equivalently, represented as
a multilinear polynomial. We say that it is Boolean if its image is
in $\{-1,1\}$.

We show that every function on the hypercube with a sparse ... more >>>

The problem of monotonicity testing of the boolean hypercube is a classic well-studied, yet unsolved
question in property testing. We are given query access to $f:\{0,1\}^n \mapsto R$
(for some ordered range $R$). The boolean hypercube ${\cal B}^n$ has a natural partial order, denoted by $\prec$ (defined by the product ... more >>>

The polynomial Freiman-Ruzsa conjecture is one of the important conjectures in additive combinatorics. It asserts than one can switch between combinatorial and algebraic notions of approximate subgroups with only a polynomial loss in the underlying parameters. This conjecture has also already found several applications in theoretical computer science. Recently, Tom ... more >>>

Can complexity classes be characterized in terms of efficient reducibility to the (undecidable) set of Kolmogorov-random strings? Although this might seem improbable, a series of papers has recently provided evidence that this may be the case. In particular, it is known that there is a class of problems $C$ defined ... more >>>

A decade has passed since Alekhnovich and Razborov presented an algorithm that solves SAT on instances $\phi$ of size $n$ having tree-width $TW(\phi)$, using time (and space) bounded by $2^{O(TW(\phi))}n^{O(1)}$. Although there have been several papers over the ensuing years building on the work of Alekhnovich and Razborov there has ... more >>>

We prove that for every constant $k\ge 2$, every polynomial time bound $t$, and every polynomially small $\epsilon$, there exists a family of distributions on $k$ elements that can be sampled exactly in polynomial time but cannot be sampled within statistical distance $1-1/k-\epsilon$ in time $t$. Our proof involves reducing ... more >>>

We consider the problem of approximating the minmax value of a multiplayer game in strategic form. We argue that in 3-player games with 0-1 payoffs, approximating the minmax value within an additive constant smaller than $\xi/2$, where $\xi = \frac{3-\sqrt5}{2} \approx 0.382$, is not possible by a polynomial time algorithm. ... more >>>

Forty years ago, Wiesner pointed out that quantum mechanics raises the striking possibility of money that cannot be counterfeited according to the laws of physics. We propose the first quantum money scheme that is (1) public-key, meaning that anyone can verify a banknote as genuine, not only the bank that ... more >>>

In communication complexity, two players each have an input and they wish to compute some function of the joint inputs. This has been the object of much study and a wide variety of lower bound methods have been introduced to address the problem of showing lower bounds on communication. Recently, ... more >>>

The central goal of data stream algorithms is to process massive streams of data using sublinear storage space. Motivated by work in the database community on outsourcing database and data stream processing, we ask whether the space usage of such algorithms can be further reduced by enlisting a more powerful ... more >>>

Loosely speaking, a proximity-oblivious (property) tester is a randomized algorithm that makes a constant number of queries to a tested object and distinguishes objects that have a predetermined property from those that lack it. Specifically, for some threshold probability $c$, objects having the property are accepted with probability at least ... more >>>

We prove that the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP) on point lattices is NP-hard to approximate for any constant factor under polynomial time reverse unfaithful random reductions. These are probabilistic reductions with one-sided error that produce false negatives with small probability, but are guaranteed not to produce false positives regardless of ... more >>>

We study the complexity of black-box constructions of
pseudorandom functions (PRF) from one-way functions (OWF)
that are secure against non-uniform adversaries. We show
that if OWF do not exist, then given as an oracle any
(inefficient) hard-to-invert function, one can compute a
PRF in polynomial time with only $k(n)$ oracle ... more >>>

We introduce a (new) notion of parameterized proof system. For parameterized versions of standard proof systems such as Extended Frege and Substitution Frege we compare their complexity with respect to parameterized simulations.

We prove the following results concerning the combinatorics of list decoding, motivated by the exponential gap between the known upper bound (of $O(1/\gamma)$) and lower bound (of $\Omega_p(\log (1/\gamma))$) for the list-size needed to decode up to radius $p$ with rate $\gamma$ away from capacity, i.e., $1-h(p)-\gamma$ (here $p\in (0,1/2)$ ... more >>>

The results of Raghavendra (2008) show that assuming Khot's Unique Games Conjecture (2002), for every constraint satisfaction problem there exists a generic semi-definite program that achieves the optimal approximation factor. This result is existential as it does not provide an explicit optimal rounding procedure nor does it allow to calculate ... more >>>

Kolaitis and Kopparty have shown that for any first-order formula with
parity quantifiers over the language of graphs there is a family of
multi-variate polynomials of constant-degree that agree with the
formula on all but a $2^{-\Omega(n)}$-fraction of the graphs with $n$
vertices. The proof yields a bound on the ... more >>>

A set of multivariate polynomials, over a field of zero or large characteristic, can be tested for algebraic independence by the well-known Jacobian criterion. For fields of other characteristic $p>0$, there is no analogous characterization known. In this paper we give the first such criterion. Essentially, it boils down to ... more >>>

Given a graph $G$, we consider the problem of finding the largest set
of edge-disjoint triangles contained in $G$. We show that even the
simpler case of decomposing the edges of
a sparse split graph $G$ into edge-disjoint triangles
is NP-complete. We show next that the case of a general ... more >>>

This note refers to the effect of the proximity parameter on the operation of (standard) property testers. Its bottom-line is that, except in pathological cases, the effect of the proximity parameter is restricted to determining the query complexity of the tester. The point is that, in non-pathological cases, the mapping ... more >>>

We develop a new notion called {\it tester of a class $\cM$ of
functions} $f:\cA\to \cC$ that maps the elements $\bfa\in \cA$ in
the domain $\cA$ of the function to a finite number (the size of
the tester) of elements $\bfb_1,\ldots,\bfb_t$ in a smaller
sub-domain $\cB\subset \cA$ where the property ... more >>>

We address the following problem: how to execute any algorithm P, for an unbounded number of executions, in the presence of an adversary who observes partial information on the internal state of the computation during executions. The security guarantee is that the adversary learns nothing, beyond P's input/output behavior.

This ... more >>>

We survey research that studies the connection between the computational complexity
of optimization problems on the one hand, and the duality gap between the primal and
dual optimization problems on the other. To our knowledge, this is the first survey that
connects the two very important areas. We further look ... more >>>

We develop a new method for proving explicit approximation lower bounds for TSP problems with bounded metrics improving on the best up to now known bounds. They almost match the best known bounds for unbounded metric TSP problems. In particular, we prove the best known lower bound for TSP with ... 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 >>>

Given a set of $n$ random $d$-dimensional boolean vectors with the promise that two of them are $\rho$-correlated with each other, how quickly can one find the two correlated vectors? We present a surprising and simple algorithm which, for any constant $\epsilon>0$ runs in (expected) time $d n^{\frac{3 \omega}{4}+\epsilon} poly(\frac{1}{\rho})< ... more >>>

Every pseudorandom generator is in particular a one-way function. If we only consider part of the output of the
pseudorandom generator is this still one-way? Here is a general setting formalizing this question. Suppose
$G:\{0,1\}^n\rightarrow \{0,1\}^{\ell(n)}$ is a pseudorandom generator with stretch $\ell(n)> n$. Let $M_R\in\{0,1\}^{m(n)\times \ell(n)}$ be a linear ... more >>>

In this paper we study quantum nondeterminism in multiparty communication. There are three (possibly) different types of nondeterminism in quantum computation: i) strong, ii) weak with classical proofs, and iii) weak with quantum proofs. Here we focus on the first one. A strong quantum nondeterministic protocol accepts a correct input ... more >>>

Lov\'{a}sz and Schrijver introduced several lift and project methods for $0$-$1$ integer programs, now collectively known as Lov\'{a}sz-Schrijver ($LS$) hierarchies. Several lower bounds have since been proven for the rank of various linear programming relaxations in the $LS$ and $LS_+$ hierarchies. In this paper we investigate rank bounds in the ... more >>>

We propose an abstract framework for studying search-to-decision reductions for NP. Specifically, we study the following witness finding problem: for a hidden nonempty set $W\subseteq\{0,1\}^n$, the goal is to output a witness in $W$ with constant probability by making randomized queries of the form ``is $Q\cap W$ nonempty?''\ where $Q\subseteq\{0,1\}^n$. ... more >>>

Invariance with respect to linear or affine transformations of the domain is arguably the most common symmetry exhibited by natural algebraic properties. In this work, we show that any low complexity affine-invariant property of multivariate functions over finite fields is testable with a constant number of queries. This immediately reproves, ... more >>>