11,631 research outputs found
Testing Low Complexity Affine-Invariant Properties
Invariance with respect to linear or affine transformations of the domain is
arguably the most common symmetry exhibited by natural algebraic properties. In
this work, we show that any low complexity affine-invariant property of
multivariate functions over finite fields is testable with a constant number of
queries. This immediately reproves, for instance, that the Reed-Muller code
over F_p of degree d < p is testable, with an argument that uses no detailed
algebraic information about polynomials except that low degree is preserved by
composition with affine maps.
The complexity of an affine-invariant property P refers to the maximum
complexity, as defined by Green and Tao (Ann. Math. 2008), of the sets of
linear forms used to characterize P. A more precise statement of our main
result is that for any fixed prime p >=2 and fixed integer R >= 2, any
affine-invariant property P of functions f: F_p^n -> [R] is testable, assuming
the complexity of the property is less than p. Our proof involves developing
analogs of graph-theoretic techniques in an algebraic setting, using tools from
higher-order Fourier analysis.Comment: 38 pages, appears in SODA '1
Every locally characterized affine-invariant property is testable
Let F = F_p for any fixed prime p >= 2. An affine-invariant property is a
property of functions on F^n that is closed under taking affine transformations
of the domain. We prove that all affine-invariant property having local
characterizations are testable. In fact, we show a proximity-oblivious test for
any such property P, meaning that there is a test that, given an input function
f, makes a constant number of queries to f, always accepts if f satisfies P,
and rejects with positive probability if the distance between f and P is
nonzero. More generally, we show that any affine-invariant property that is
closed under taking restrictions to subspaces and has bounded complexity is
testable.
We also prove that any property that can be described as the property of
decomposing into a known structure of low-degree polynomials is locally
characterized and is, hence, testable. For example, whether a function is a
product of two degree-d polynomials, whether a function splits into a product
of d linear polynomials, and whether a function has low rank are all examples
of degree-structural properties and are therefore locally characterized.
Our results depend on a new Gowers inverse theorem by Tao and Ziegler for low
characteristic fields that decomposes any polynomial with large Gowers norm
into a function of low-degree non-classical polynomials. We establish a new
equidistribution result for high rank non-classical polynomials that drives the
proofs of both the testability results and the local characterization of
degree-structural properties
A Characterization of Locally Testable Affine-Invariant Properties via Decomposition Theorems
Let be a property of function for
a fixed prime . An algorithm is called a tester for if, given
a query access to the input function , with high probability, it accepts
when satisfies and rejects when is "far" from satisfying
. In this paper, we give a characterization of affine-invariant
properties that are (two-sided error) testable with a constant number of
queries. The characterization is stated in terms of decomposition theorems,
which roughly claim that any function can be decomposed into a structured part
that is a function of a constant number of polynomials, and a pseudo-random
part whose Gowers norm is small. We first give an algorithm that tests whether
the structured part of the input function has a specific form. Then we show
that an affine-invariant property is testable with a constant number of queries
if and only if it can be reduced to the problem of testing whether the
structured part of the input function is close to one of a constant number of
candidates.Comment: 27 pages, appearing in STOC 2014. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1306.0649, arXiv:1212.3849 by other author
Testing Linear-Invariant Non-Linear Properties
We consider the task of testing properties of Boolean functions that are
invariant under linear transformations of the Boolean cube. Previous work in
property testing, including the linearity test and the test for Reed-Muller
codes, has mostly focused on such tasks for linear properties. The one
exception is a test due to Green for "triangle freeness": a function
f:\cube^{n}\to\cube satisfies this property if do not all
equal 1, for any pair x,y\in\cube^{n}.
Here we extend this test to a more systematic study of testing for
linear-invariant non-linear properties. We consider properties that are
described by a single forbidden pattern (and its linear transformations), i.e.,
a property is given by points v_{1},...,v_{k}\in\cube^{k} and
f:\cube^{n}\to\cube satisfies the property that if for all linear maps
L:\cube^{k}\to\cube^{n} it is the case that do
not all equal 1. We show that this property is testable if the underlying
matroid specified by is a graphic matroid. This extends
Green's result to an infinite class of new properties.
Our techniques extend those of Green and in particular we establish a link
between the notion of "1-complexity linear systems" of Green and Tao, and
graphic matroids, to derive the results.Comment: This is the full version; conference version appeared in the
proceedings of STACS 200
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