182 research outputs found
Rounding Sum-of-Squares Relaxations
We present a general approach to rounding semidefinite programming
relaxations obtained by the Sum-of-Squares method (Lasserre hierarchy). Our
approach is based on using the connection between these relaxations and the
Sum-of-Squares proof system to transform a *combining algorithm* -- an
algorithm that maps a distribution over solutions into a (possibly weaker)
solution -- into a *rounding algorithm* that maps a solution of the relaxation
to a solution of the original problem.
Using this approach, we obtain algorithms that yield improved results for
natural variants of three well-known problems:
1) We give a quasipolynomial-time algorithm that approximates the maximum of
a low degree multivariate polynomial with non-negative coefficients over the
Euclidean unit sphere. Beyond being of interest in its own right, this is
related to an open question in quantum information theory, and our techniques
have already led to improved results in this area (Brand\~{a}o and Harrow, STOC
'13).
2) We give a polynomial-time algorithm that, given a d dimensional subspace
of R^n that (almost) contains the characteristic function of a set of size n/k,
finds a vector in the subspace satisfying ,
where . Aside from being a natural relaxation, this
is also motivated by a connection to the Small Set Expansion problem shown by
Barak et al. (STOC 2012) and our results yield a certain improvement for that
problem.
3) We use this notion of L_4 vs. L_2 sparsity to obtain a polynomial-time
algorithm with substantially improved guarantees for recovering a planted
-sparse vector v in a random d-dimensional subspace of R^n. If v has mu n
nonzero coordinates, we can recover it with high probability whenever , improving for prior methods which
intrinsically required
Approximation Limits of Linear Programs (Beyond Hierarchies)
We develop a framework for approximation limits of polynomial-size linear
programs from lower bounds on the nonnegative ranks of suitably defined
matrices. This framework yields unconditional impossibility results that are
applicable to any linear program as opposed to only programs generated by
hierarchies. Using our framework, we prove that O(n^{1/2-eps})-approximations
for CLIQUE require linear programs of size 2^{n^\Omega(eps)}. (This lower bound
applies to linear programs using a certain encoding of CLIQUE as a linear
optimization problem.) Moreover, we establish a similar result for
approximations of semidefinite programs by linear programs. Our main ingredient
is a quantitative improvement of Razborov's rectangle corruption lemma for the
high error regime, which gives strong lower bounds on the nonnegative rank of
certain perturbations of the unique disjointness matrix.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figure
Faster SDP hierarchy solvers for local rounding algorithms
Convex relaxations based on different hierarchies of linear/semi-definite
programs have been used recently to devise approximation algorithms for various
optimization problems. The approximation guarantee of these algorithms improves
with the number of {\em rounds} in the hierarchy, though the complexity of
solving (or even writing down the solution for) the 'th level program grows
as where is the input size.
In this work, we observe that many of these algorithms are based on {\em
local} rounding procedures that only use a small part of the SDP solution (of
size instead of ). We give an algorithm to
find the requisite portion in time polynomial in its size. The challenge in
achieving this is that the required portion of the solution is not fixed a
priori but depends on other parts of the solution, sometimes in a complicated
iterative manner.
Our solver leads to time algorithms to obtain the same
guarantees in many cases as the earlier time algorithms based on
rounds of the Lasserre hierarchy. In particular, guarantees based on rounds can be realized in polynomial time.
We develop and describe our algorithm in a fairly general abstract framework.
The main technical tool in our work, which might be of independent interest in
convex optimization, is an efficient ellipsoid algorithm based separation
oracle for convex programs that can output a {\em certificate of infeasibility
with restricted support}. This is used in a recursive manner to find a sequence
of consistent points in nested convex bodies that "fools" local rounding
algorithms.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figure
Sticky Brownian Rounding and its Applications to Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Semidefinite programming is a powerful tool in the design and analysis of
approximation algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems. In
particular, the random hyperplane rounding method of Goemans and Williamson has
been extensively studied for more than two decades, resulting in various
extensions to the original technique and beautiful algorithms for a wide range
of applications. Despite the fact that this approach yields tight approximation
guarantees for some problems, e.g., Max-Cut, for many others, e.g., Max-SAT and
Max-DiCut, the tight approximation ratio is still unknown. One of the main
reasons for this is the fact that very few techniques for rounding semidefinite
relaxations are known.
In this work, we present a new general and simple method for rounding
semi-definite programs, based on Brownian motion. Our approach is inspired by
recent results in algorithmic discrepancy theory. We develop and present tools
for analyzing our new rounding algorithms, utilizing mathematical machinery
from the theory of Brownian motion, complex analysis, and partial differential
equations. Focusing on constraint satisfaction problems, we apply our method to
several classical problems, including Max-Cut, Max-2SAT, and MaxDiCut, and
derive new algorithms that are competitive with the best known results. To
illustrate the versatility and general applicability of our approach, we give
new approximation algorithms for the Max-Cut problem with side constraints that
crucially utilizes measure concentration results for the Sticky Brownian
Motion, a feature missing from hyperplane rounding and its generalization
New Dependencies of Hierarchies in Polynomial Optimization
We compare four key hierarchies for solving Constrained Polynomial
Optimization Problems (CPOP): Sum of Squares (SOS), Sum of Diagonally Dominant
Polynomials (SDSOS), Sum of Nonnegative Circuits (SONC), and the Sherali Adams
(SA) hierarchies. We prove a collection of dependencies among these hierarchies
both for general CPOPs and for optimization problems on the Boolean hypercube.
Key results include for the general case that the SONC and SOS hierarchy are
polynomially incomparable, while SDSOS is contained in SONC. A direct
consequence is the non-existence of a Putinar-like Positivstellensatz for
SDSOS. On the Boolean hypercube, we show as a main result that Schm\"udgen-like
versions of the hierarchies SDSOS*, SONC*, and SA* are polynomially equivalent.
Moreover, we show that SA* is contained in any Schm\"udgen-like hierarchy that
provides a O(n) degree bound.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figure
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