On the structure of intractable sets

There are two parts to this dissertation. The first part is motivated by nothing less than a reexamination of what it means for a set to be NP-complete. Are there sets in NP that in a mathematically meaningful sense should be considered to be complete for NP, but that are not NP-complete in the usual sense that every set in NP is ≤q[subscript]spmP-reducible to it? We define a noneffective binary relation that makes precise the notion that the complexity of A is polynomially related to the complexity of B, This relation yields new completeness and hardness notions for complexity classes, and we show that there are sets that are hard for NP that are not NP-hard in the usual sense. We also show that there are sets that must be considered to be complete for E that are not even ≤q[subscript]spTP-complete for E;In a certain way, hardness and completeness with respect to the relation we define is related to the notion of almost everywhere (a.e.) complexity, and so we initiate this study by first investigating this notion. We state and prove a deterministic time hierarchy theorem for a.e. complexity that is as tight as the Hartmanis-Stearns hierarchy theorem for infinitely often complexity. This result is a significant improvement over all previously known hierarchy theorems for a.e. complex sets. We derive similar, very tight, hierarchy theorems for sets that cannot be a.e. complex for syntactic reasons, but for which, intuitively, a.e. complex notions should exit. Similar results are applied to the study of P-printable sets and sets of low generalized Kolmogorov complexity;The second part of this study deals with relativization. Does the fact that DTIME(O (n)) ≠ NTIME(n) help in leading us to a proof that P ≠ NP? Does one imply the other? We seek evidence that this is a hard . We construct an oracle that answers this question in the affirmative, and we construct an oracle that answers this question in the negative. We conclude that the result that DTIME(O (n)) ≠ NTIME(n) does not imply P ≠ NP by recursive theoretic techniques;Finally, we study the relationships between P, NP, and the unambiguous and random time classes UP, and RP. Questions concerning these relationships are motivated by complexity issues to public-key cryptosystems. We prove that there exists a recursive oracle A such that P[superscript]A ≠ UP[superscript]A≠ NP[superscript]A, and such that the first inequality is strong, i.e., there exists a P[superscript]A-immune set in UP[superscript]A. Further, we constructed a recursive oracle B such that UP[superscript]B contains an RP[superscript]B-immune set. As a corollary we obtain P[superscript]B ≠ RB[superscript]B≠ NP[superscript]B and both inequalities are strong. By use of the techniques employed in the proof that P[superscript]A≠ UP[superscript]A≠ NP[superscript]A, we are also able to solve an open problem raised by Book, Long and Selman

Genericity and measure for exponential time

AbstractRecently, Lutz [14, 15] introduced a polynomial time bounded version of Lebesgue measure. He and others (see e.g. [11, 13–18, 20]) used this concept to investigate the quantitative structure of Exponential Time (E = DTIME(2lin)). Previously, Ambos-Spies et al. [2, 3] introduced polynomial time bounded genericity concepts and used them for the investigation of structural properties of NP (under appropriate assumptions) and E. Here we relate these concepts to each other. We show that, for any c ⩾ 1, the class of nc-generic sets has p-measure 1. This allows us to simplify and extend certain p-measure 1-results. To illustrate the power of generic sets we take the Small Span Theorem of Juedes and Lutz [11] as an example and prove a generalization for bounded query reductions

The Structure of logarithmic advice complexity classes

A nonuniform class called here Full-P/log, due to Ko, is studied. It corresponds to polynomial time with logarithmically long advice. Its importance lies in the structural properties it enjoys, more interesting than those of the alternative class P/log; specifically, its introduction was motivated by the need of a logarithmic advice class closed under polynomial-time deterministic reductions. Several characterizations of Full-P/log are shown, formulated in terms of various sorts of tally sets with very small information content. A study of its inner structure is presented, by considering the most usual reducibilities and looking for the relationships among the corresponding reduction and equivalence classes defined from these special tally sets.Postprint (published version

On adaptive versus nonadaptive bounded query machines

AbstractThe polynomial-time adaptive (Turing) and nonadaptive (truth-table) bounded query machines are compared with respect to sparse oracles. A k-query adaptive machine has been found which, relative to a sparse oracle, cannot be simulated by any (2k−2)-query nonadaptive machine, even with a different sparse oracle. Conversely, there is a (3·2k−2)-query nonadaptive machine which, relative to a sparse oracle, cannot be simulated by any k-query adaptive machine, with any sparse oracle

Weak Completeness Notions for Exponential Time

Abstract The standard way for proving a problem to be intractable is to show that the problem is hard or complete for one of the standard complexity classes containing intractable problems. Lutz (1995) proposed a generalization of this approach by introducing more general weak hardness notions which still imply intractability. While a set A is hard for a class C if all problems in C can be reduced to A (by a polynomial-time bounded many-one reduction) and complete if it is hard and a member of C, Lutz proposed to call a set A weakly hard if a nonnegligible part of C can be reduced to A and to call A weakly complete if in addition A 2 C. For the exponential-time classes E = DTIME(2lin) and EXP = DTIME(2poly), Lutz formalized these ideas by introducing resource bounded (Lebesgue) measures on these classes and by saying that a subclass of E is negligible if it has measure 0 in E (and similarly for EXP). A variant of these concepts, based on resource bounded Baire category in place of measure, was introduced by Ambos-Spies (1996) where now a class is declared to be negligible if it is meager in the corresponding resource bounded sense. In our thesis we introduce and investigate new, more general, weak hardness notions for E and EXP and compare them with the above concepts from the literature. The two main new notions we introduce are nontriviality, which may be viewed as the most general weak hardness notion, and strong nontriviality. In case of E, a set A is E-nontrivial if, for any k 1, A has a predecessor in E which is 2kn complex, i.e., which can only be computed by Turing machines with run times exceeding 2kn on infinitely many inputs; and A is strongly E-nontrivial if there are predecessors which are almost everywhere 2kn complex. Besides giving examples and structural properties of the E-(non)trivial and strongly E-(non)trivial sets, we separate all weak hardness concepts for E, compare the corresponding concepts for E and EXP, answer the question whether (strongly) E-nontrivial sets are typical among the sets in E (or among the computable sets, or among all sets), investigate the degrees of the (strongly) E-nontrivial sets, and analyze the strength of these concepts if we replace the underlying p-m-reducibility by some weaker polynomial-time reducibilities

The Complexity of Kings

A king in a directed graph is a node from which each node in the graph can be reached via paths of length at most two. There is a broad literature on tournaments (completely oriented digraphs), and it has been known for more than half a century that all tournaments have at least one king [Lan53]. Recently, kings have proven useful in theoretical computer science, in particular in the study of the complexity of the semifeasible sets [HNP98,HT05] and in the study of the complexity of reachability problems [Tan01,NT02]. In this paper, we study the complexity of recognizing kings. For each succinctly specified family of tournaments, the king problem is known to belong to $\Pi_2^p$ [HOZZ]. We prove that this bound is optimal: We construct a succinctly specified tournament family whose king problem is $\Pi_2^p$-complete. It follows easily from our proof approach that the problem of testing kingship in succinctly specified graphs (which need not be tournaments) is $\Pi_2^p$-complete. We also obtain $\Pi_2^p$-completeness results for k-kings in succinctly specified j-partite tournaments, $k,j \geq 2$, and we generalize our main construction to show that $\Pi_2^p$-completeness holds for testing k-kingship in succinctly specified families of tournaments for all $k \geq 2$

P-selectivity: Intersections and indices

AbstractThe P-selective sets (Selman, 1979) are those sets for which there is a polynomial-time algorithm that, given any two strings, determines which is “more likely” to belong to the set: if either of the strings is in the set, the algorithm chooses one that is in the set. We prove that, for each k, the k-ary Boolean connectives under which the P-selective sets are closed are exactly those that are either completely degenerate or almost-completely degenerate. We determine the complexity of the index set of the r.e. P-selective sets — ∑30-complete