5 research outputs found
Sum of squares lower bounds for refuting any CSP
Let be a nontrivial -ary predicate. Consider a
random instance of the constraint satisfaction problem on
variables with constraints, each being applied to randomly
chosen literals. Provided the constraint density satisfies , such
an instance is unsatisfiable with high probability. The \emph{refutation}
problem is to efficiently find a proof of unsatisfiability.
We show that whenever the predicate supports a -\emph{wise uniform}
probability distribution on its satisfying assignments, the sum of squares
(SOS) algorithm of degree
(which runs in time ) \emph{cannot} refute a random instance of
. In particular, the polynomial-time SOS algorithm requires
constraints to refute random instances of
CSP when supports a -wise uniform distribution on its satisfying
assignments. Together with recent work of Lee et al. [LRS15], our result also
implies that \emph{any} polynomial-size semidefinite programming relaxation for
refutation requires at least constraints.
Our results (which also extend with no change to CSPs over larger alphabets)
subsume all previously known lower bounds for semialgebraic refutation of
random CSPs. For every constraint predicate~, they give a three-way hardness
tradeoff between the density of constraints, the SOS degree (hence running
time), and the strength of the refutation. By recent algorithmic results of
Allen et al. [AOW15] and Raghavendra et al. [RRS16], this full three-way
tradeoff is \emph{tight}, up to lower-order factors.Comment: 39 pages, 1 figur
Lower Bounds for CSP Refutation by SDP Hierarchies
For a k-ary predicate P, a random instance of CSP(P) with n variables and m constraints is unsatisfiable with high probability when m >= O(n). The natural algorithmic task in this regime is refutation: finding a proof that a given random instance is unsatisfiable. Recent work of Allen et al. suggests that the difficulty of refuting CSP(P) using an SDP is determined by a parameter cmplx(P), the smallest t for which there does not exist a t-wise uniform distribution over satisfying assignments to P. In particular they show that random instances of CSP(P) with m >> n^{cmplx(P)/2} can be refuted efficiently using an SDP.
In this work, we give evidence that n^{cmplx(P)/2} constraints are also necessary for refutation using SDPs. Specifically, we show that if P supports a (t-1)-wise uniform distribution over satisfying assignments, then the Sherali-Adams_+ and Lovasz-Schrijver_+ SDP hierarchies cannot refute a random instance of CSP(P) in polynomial time for any m <= n^{t/2-epsilon}
The Cryptographic Hardness of Random Local Functions -- Survey
Constant parallel-time cryptography allows to perform complex cryptographic tasks at an ultimate level of parallelism, namely, by local functions
that each of their output bits depend on a constant number of input bits. A natural way to obtain local cryptographic constructions is to use \emph{random local functions} in which each output bit is computed by applying some fixed -ary predicate to a randomly chosen -size subset of the input bits.
In this work, we will study the cryptographic hardness of random local functions. In particular, we will survey known attacks and hardness results, discuss different flavors of hardness (one-wayness, pseudorandomness, collision resistance, public-key encryption), and mention applications to other problems in cryptography and computational complexity. We also present some open questions with the hope to develop a systematic study of the cryptographic hardness of local functions