6,536 research outputs found
Narrow proofs may be maximally long
We prove that there are 3-CNF formulas over n variables that can be refuted in resolution in width w but require resolution proofs of size n(Omega(w)). This shows that the simple counting argument that any formula refutable in width w must have a proof in size n(O(w)) is essentially tight. Moreover, our lower bound generalizes to polynomial calculus resolution and Sherali-Adams, implying that the corresponding size upper bounds in terms of degree and rank are tight as well. The lower bound does not extend all the way to Lasserre, however, since we show that there the formulas we study have proofs of constant rank and size polynomial in both n and w.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Narrow Proofs May Be Maximally Long
We prove that there are 3-CNF formulas over n variables that can be refuted
in resolution in width w but require resolution proofs of size n^Omega(w). This
shows that the simple counting argument that any formula refutable in width w
must have a proof in size n^O(w) is essentially tight. Moreover, our lower
bound generalizes to polynomial calculus resolution (PCR) and Sherali-Adams,
implying that the corresponding size upper bounds in terms of degree and rank
are tight as well. Our results do not extend all the way to Lasserre, however,
where the formulas we study have proofs of constant rank and size polynomial in
both n and w
A Near-Optimal Depth-Hierarchy Theorem for Small-Depth Multilinear Circuits
We study the size blow-up that is necessary to convert an algebraic circuit
of product-depth to one of product-depth in the multilinear
setting.
We show that for every positive
there is an explicit multilinear polynomial on variables
that can be computed by a multilinear formula of product-depth and
size , but not by any multilinear circuit of product-depth and
size less than . This result is tight up to the
constant implicit in the double exponent for all
This strengthens a result of Raz and Yehudayoff (Computational Complexity
2009) who prove a quasipolynomial separation for constant-depth multilinear
circuits, and a result of Kayal, Nair and Saha (STACS 2016) who give an
exponential separation in the case
Our separating examples may be viewed as algebraic analogues of variants of
the Graph Reachability problem studied by Chen, Oliveira, Servedio and Tan
(STOC 2016), who used them to prove lower bounds for constant-depth Boolean
circuits
Conditional Lower Bounds for Space/Time Tradeoffs
In recent years much effort has been concentrated towards achieving
polynomial time lower bounds on algorithms for solving various well-known
problems. A useful technique for showing such lower bounds is to prove them
conditionally based on well-studied hardness assumptions such as 3SUM, APSP,
SETH, etc. This line of research helps to obtain a better understanding of the
complexity inside P.
A related question asks to prove conditional space lower bounds on data
structures that are constructed to solve certain algorithmic tasks after an
initial preprocessing stage. This question received little attention in
previous research even though it has potential strong impact.
In this paper we address this question and show that surprisingly many of the
well-studied hard problems that are known to have conditional polynomial time
lower bounds are also hard when concerning space. This hardness is shown as a
tradeoff between the space consumed by the data structure and the time needed
to answer queries. The tradeoff may be either smooth or admit one or more
singularity points.
We reveal interesting connections between different space hardness
conjectures and present matching upper bounds. We also apply these hardness
conjectures to both static and dynamic problems and prove their conditional
space hardness.
We believe that this novel framework of polynomial space conjectures can play
an important role in expressing polynomial space lower bounds of many important
algorithmic problems. Moreover, it seems that it can also help in achieving a
better understanding of the hardness of their corresponding problems in terms
of time
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