8,173 research outputs found
A complex analogue of Toda's Theorem
Toda \cite{Toda} proved in 1989 that the (discrete) polynomial time
hierarchy, , is contained in the class \mathbf{P}^{#\mathbf{P}},
namely the class of languages that can be decided by a Turing machine in
polynomial time given access to an oracle with the power to compute a function
in the counting complexity class #\mathbf{P}. This result, which illustrates
the power of counting is considered to be a seminal result in computational
complexity theory. An analogous result (with a compactness hypothesis) in the
complexity theory over the reals (in the sense of Blum-Shub-Smale real machines
\cite{BSS89}) was proved in \cite{BZ09}. Unlike Toda's proof in the discrete
case, which relied on sophisticated combinatorial arguments, the proof in
\cite{BZ09} is topological in nature in which the properties of the topological
join is used in a fundamental way. However, the constructions used in
\cite{BZ09} were semi-algebraic -- they used real inequalities in an essential
way and as such do not extend to the complex case. In this paper, we extend the
techniques developed in \cite{BZ09} to the complex projective case. A key role
is played by the complex join of quasi-projective complex varieties. As a
consequence we obtain a complex analogue of Toda's theorem. The results
contained in this paper, taken together with those contained in \cite{BZ09},
illustrate the central role of the Poincar\'e polynomial in algorithmic
algebraic geometry, as well as, in computational complexity theory over the
complex and real numbers -- namely, the ability to compute it efficiently
enables one to decide in polynomial time all languages in the (compact)
polynomial hierarchy over the appropriate field.Comment: 31 pages. Final version to appear in Foundations of Computational
Mathematic
Interpolation in Valiant's theory
We investigate the following question: if a polynomial can be evaluated at
rational points by a polynomial-time boolean algorithm, does it have a
polynomial-size arithmetic circuit? We argue that this question is certainly
difficult. Answering it negatively would indeed imply that the constant-free
versions of the algebraic complexity classes VP and VNP defined by Valiant are
different. Answering this question positively would imply a transfer theorem
from boolean to algebraic complexity. Our proof method relies on Lagrange
interpolation and on recent results connecting the (boolean) counting hierarchy
to algebraic complexity classes. As a byproduct we obtain two additional
results: (i) The constant-free, degree-unbounded version of Valiant's
hypothesis that VP and VNP differ implies the degree-bounded version. This
result was previously known to hold for fields of positive characteristic only.
(ii) If exponential sums of easy to compute polynomials can be computed
efficiently, then the same is true of exponential products. We point out an
application of this result to the P=NP problem in the Blum-Shub-Smale model of
computation over the field of complex numbers.Comment: 13 page
Counting Homomorphisms to Cactus Graphs Modulo 2
A homomorphism from a graph G to a graph H is a function from V(G) to V(H) that preserves edges. Many combinatorial structures that arise in mathematics and computer science can be represented naturally as graph homomorphisms and as weighted sums of graph homomorphisms. In this paper, we study the complexity of counting homomorphisms modulo 2. The complexity of modular counting was introduced by Papadimitriou and Zachos and it has been pioneered by Valiant who famously introduced a problem for which counting modulo 7 is easy but counting modulo 2 is intractable. Modular counting provides a rich setting in which to study the structure of homomorphism problems. In this case, the structure of the graph H has a big influence on the complexity of the problem. Thus, our approach is graph-theoretic. We give a complete solution for the class of cactus graphs, which are connected graphs in which every edge belongs to at most one cycle. Cactus graphs arise in many applications such as the modelling of wireless sensor networks and the comparison of genomes. We show that, for some cactus graphs H, counting homomorphisms to H modulo 2 can be done in polynomial time. For every other fixed cactus graph H, the problem is complete for the complexity class +P which is a wide complexity class to which every problem in the polynomial hierarchy can be reduced (using randomised reductions). Determining which H lead to tractable problems can be done in polynomial time. Our result builds upon the work of Faben and Jerrum, who gave a dichotomy for the case in which H is a tree
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