INTERLEAVED GROUP PRODUCTS

Let $G$ be the special linear group $\mathrm{SL}(2,q)$. We show that if $(a_1,\ldots,a_t)$ and $(b_1,\ldots,b_t)$ are sampled uniformly from large subsets $A$ and $B$ of $G^t$ then their interleaved product $a_1 b_1 a_2 b_2 \cdots a_t b_t$ is nearly uniform over $G$. This extends a result of the first author, which corresponds to the independent case where $A$ and $B$ are product sets. We obtain a number of other results. For example, we show that if $X$ is a probability distribution on $G^m$ such that any two coordinates are uniform in $G^2$, then a pointwise product of $s$ independent copies of $X$ is nearly uniform in $G^m$, where $s$ depends on $m$ only. Extensions to other groups are also discussed. We obtain closely related results in communication complexity, which is the setting where some of these questions were first asked by Miles and Viola. For example, suppose party $A_i$ of $k$ parties $A_1,\dots,A_k$ receives on its forehead a $t$-tuple $(a_{i1},\dots,a_{it})$ of elements from $G$. The parties are promised that the interleaved product $a_{11}\dots a_{k1}a_{12}\dots a_{k2}\dots a_{1t}\dots a_{kt}$ is equal either to the identity $e$ or to some other fixed element $g\in G$, and their goal is to determine which of the two the product is equal to. We show that for all fixed $k$ and all sufficiently large $t$ the communication is $\Omega(t \log |G|)$, which is tight. Even for $k=2$ the previous best lower bound was $\Omega(t)$. As an application, we establish the security of the leakage-resilient circuits studied by Miles and Viola in the "only computation leaks" model

Mixing in Non-Quasirandom Groups

We initiate a systematic study of mixing in non-quasirandom groups. Let A and B be two independent, high-entropy distributions over a group G. We show that the product distribution AB is statistically close to the distribution F(AB) for several choices of G and F, including: 1) G is the affine group of 2x2 matrices, and F sets the top-right matrix entry to a uniform value, 2) G is the lamplighter group, that is the wreath product of ?? and ?_{n}, and F is multiplication by a certain subgroup, 3) G is H? where H is non-abelian, and F selects a uniform coordinate and takes a uniform conjugate of it. The obtained bounds for (1) and (2) are tight. This work is motivated by and applied to problems in communication complexity. We consider the 3-party communication problem of deciding if the product of three group elements multiplies to the identity. We prove lower bounds for the groups above, which are tight for the affine and the lamplighter groups

Simultaneous Multiparty Communication Protocols for Composed Functions

In the Number On the Forehead (NOF) multiparty communication model, $k$ players want to evaluate a function $F : X_1 \times\cdots\times X_k\rightarrow Y$ on some input $(x_1,\dots,x_k)$ by broadcasting bits according to a predetermined protocol. The input is distributed in such a way that each player $i$ sees all of it except $x_i$. In the simultaneous setting, the players cannot speak to each other but instead send information to a referee. The referee does not know the players' input, and cannot give any information back. At the end, the referee must be able to recover $F(x_1,\dots,x_k)$ from what she obtained. A central open question, called the $\log n$ barrier, is to find a function which is hard to compute for $polylog(n)$ or more players (where the $x_i$'s have size $poly(n)$) in the simultaneous NOF model. This has important applications in circuit complexity, as it could help to separate $ACC^0$ from other complexity classes. One of the candidates belongs to the family of composed functions. The input to these functions is represented by a $k\times (t\cdot n)$ boolean matrix $M$, whose row $i$ is the input $x_i$ and $t$ is a block-width parameter. A symmetric composed function acting on $M$ is specified by two symmetric $n$- and $kt$-variate functions $f$ and $g$, that output $f\circ g(M)=f(g(B_1),\dots,g(B_n))$ where $B_j$ is the $j$-th block of width $t$ of $M$. As the majority function $MAJ$ is conjectured to be outside of $ACC^0$, Babai et. al. suggested to study $MAJ\circ MAJ_t$, with $t$ large enough. So far, it was only known that $t=1$ is not enough for $MAJ\circ MAJ_t$ to break the $\log n$ barrier in the simultaneous deterministic NOF model. In this paper, we extend this result to any constant block-width $t>1$, by giving a protocol of cost $2^{O(2^t)}\log^{2^{t+1}}(n)$ for any symmetric composed function when there are $2^{\Omega(2^t)}\log n$ players.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure; v2: improved introduction, better cost analysis for the 2nd protoco