Overlap properties of geometric expanders

The {\em overlap number} of a finite $(d+1)$-uniform hypergraph $H$ is defined as the largest constant $c(H)\in (0,1]$ such that no matter how we map the vertices of $H$ into $\R^d$, there is a point covered by at least a $c(H)$-fraction of the simplices induced by the images of its hyperedges. In~\cite{Gro2}, motivated by the search for an analogue of the notion of graph expansion for higher dimensional simplicial complexes, it was asked whether or not there exists a sequence $\{H_n\}_{n=1}^\infty$ of arbitrarily large $(d+1)$-uniform hypergraphs with bounded degree, for which $\inf_{n\ge 1} c(H_n)>0$. Using both random methods and explicit constructions, we answer this question positively by constructing infinite families of $(d+1)$-uniform hypergraphs with bounded degree such that their overlap numbers are bounded from below by a positive constant $c=c(d)$. We also show that, for every $d$, the best value of the constant $c=c(d)$ that can be achieved by such a construction is asymptotically equal to the limit of the overlap numbers of the complete $(d+1)$-uniform hypergraphs with $n$ vertices, as $n\rightarrow\infty$. For the proof of the latter statement, we establish the following geometric partitioning result of independent interest. For any $d$ and any $\epsilon>0$, there exists $K=K(\epsilon,d)\ge d+1$ satisfying the following condition. For any $k\ge K$, for any point $q \in \mathbb{R}^d$ and for any finite Borel measure $\mu$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$ with respect to which every hyperplane has measure $0$, there is a partition $\mathbb{R}^d=A_1 \cup \ldots \cup A_{k}$ into $k$ measurable parts of equal measure such that all but at most an $\epsilon$-fraction of the $(d+1)$-tuples $A_{i_1},\ldots,A_{i_{d+1}}$ have the property that either all simplices with one vertex in each $A_{i_j}$ contain $q$ or none of these simplices contain $q$

Eigenstripping, Spectral Decay, and Edge-Expansion on Posets

Fast mixing of random walks on hypergraphs (simplicial complexes) has recently led to myriad breakthroughs throughout theoretical computer science. Many important applications, however, (e.g. to LTCs, 2-2 games) rely on a more general class of underlying structures called posets, and crucially take advantage of non-simplicial structure. These works make it clear that the global expansion properties of posets depend strongly on their underlying architecture (e.g. simplicial, cubical, linear algebraic), but the overall phenomenon remains poorly understood. In this work, we quantify the advantage of different poset architectures in both a spectral and combinatorial sense, highlighting how regularity controls the spectral decay and edge-expansion of corresponding random walks. We show that the spectra of walks on expanding posets (Dikstein, Dinur, Filmus, Harsha APPROX-RANDOM 2018) concentrate in strips around a small number of approximate eigenvalues controlled by the regularity of the underlying poset. This gives a simple condition to identify poset architectures (e.g. the Grassmann) that exhibit strong (even exponential) decay of eigenvalues, versus architectures like hypergraphs whose eigenvalues decay linearly - a crucial distinction in applications to hardness of approximation and agreement testing such as the recent proof of the 2-2 Games Conjecture (Khot, Minzer, Safra FOCS 2018). We show these results lead to a tight characterization of edge-expansion on expanding posets in the ??-regime (generalizing recent work of Bafna, Hopkins, Kaufman, and Lovett (SODA 2022)), and pay special attention to the case of the Grassmann where we show our results are tight for a natural set of sparsifications of the Grassmann graphs. We note for clarity that our results do not recover the characterization of expansion used in the proof of the 2-2 Games Conjecture which relies on ?_? rather than ??-structure

The Quantum PCP Conjecture

The classical PCP theorem is arguably the most important achievement of classical complexity theory in the past quarter century. In recent years, researchers in quantum computational complexity have tried to identify approaches and develop tools that address the question: does a quantum version of the PCP theorem hold? The story of this study starts with classical complexity and takes unexpected turns providing fascinating vistas on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the global nature of entanglement and its topological properties, quantum error correction, information theory, and much more; it raises questions that touch upon some of the most fundamental issues at the heart of our understanding of quantum mechanics. At this point, the jury is still out as to whether or not such a theorem holds. This survey aims to provide a snapshot of the status in this ongoing story, tailored to a general theory-of-CS audience.Comment: 45 pages, 4 figures, an enhanced version of the SIGACT guest column from Volume 44 Issue 2, June 201