No Arabic abstract
Nisan showed in 1991 that the width of a smallest noncommutative single-(source,sink) algebraic branching program (ABP) to compute a noncommutative polynomial is given by the ranks of specific matrices. This means that the set of noncommutative polynomials with ABP width complexity at most $k$ is Zariski-closed, an important property in geometric complexity theory. It follows that approximations cannot help to reduce the required ABP width. It was mentioned by Forbes that this result would probably break when going from single-(source,sink) ABPs to trace ABPs. We prove that this is correct. Moreover, we study the commutative monotone setting and prove a result similar to Nisan, but concerning the analytic closure. We observe the same behavior here: The set of polynomials with ABP width complexity at most $k$ is closed for single-(source,sink) ABPs and not closed for trace ABPs. The proofs reveal an intriguing connection between tangent spaces and the vector space of flows on the ABP. We close with additional observations on VQP and the closure of VNP which allows us to establish a separation between the two classes.
We construct pseudorandom generators of seed length $tilde{O}(log(n)cdot log(1/epsilon))$ that $epsilon$-fool ordered read-once branching programs (ROBPs) of width $3$ and length $n$. For unordered ROBPs, we construct pseudorandom generators with seed length $tilde{O}(log(n) cdot mathrm{poly}(1/epsilon))$. This is the first improvement for pseudorandom generators fooling width $3$ ROBPs since the work of Nisan [Combinatorica, 1992]. Our constructions are based on the `iterated milder restrictions approach of Gopalan et al. [FOCS, 2012] (which further extends the Ajtai-Wigderson framework [FOCS, 1985]), combined with the INW-generator [STOC, 1994] at the last step (as analyzed by Braverman et al. [SICOMP, 2014]). For the unordered case, we combine iterated milder restrictions with the generator of Chattopadhyay et al. [CCC, 2018]. Two conceptual ideas that play an important role in our analysis are: (1) A relabeling technique allowing us to analyze a relabeled version of the given branching program, which turns out to be much easier. (2) Treating the number of colliding layers in a branching program as a progress measure and showing that it reduces significantly under pseudorandom restrictions. In addition, we achieve nearly optimal seed-length $tilde{O}(log(n/epsilon))$ for the classes of: (1) read-once polynomials on $n$ variables, (2) locally-monotone ROBPs of length $n$ and width $3$ (generalizing read-once CNFs and DNFs), and (3) constant-width ROBPs of length $n$ having a layer of width $2$ in every consecutive $mathrm{poly}log(n)$ layers.
Programming language concepts are used to give some new perspectives on a long-standing open problem: is logspace = ptime ?
We study the arithmetic circuit complexity of some well-known family of polynomials through the lens of parameterized complexity. Our main focus is on the construction of explicit algebraic branching programs (ABP) for determinant and permanent polynomials of the emph{rectangular} symbolic matrix in both commutative and noncommutative settings. The main results are: 1. We show an explicit $O^{*}({nchoose {downarrow k/2}})$-size ABP construction for noncommutative permanent polynomial of $ktimes n$ symbolic matrix. We obtain this via an explicit ABP construction of size $O^{*}({nchoose {downarrow k/2}})$ for $S_{n,k}^*$, noncommutative symmetrized version of the elementary symmetric polynomial $S_{n,k}$. 2. We obtain an explicit $O^{*}(2^k)$-size ABP construction for the commutative rectangular determinant polynomial of the $ktimes n$ symbolic matrix. 3. In contrast, we show that evaluating the rectangular noncommutative determinant over rational matrices is $W[1]$-hard.
We study the communication complexity of linear algebraic problems over finite fields in the multi-player message passing model, proving a number of tight lower bounds. Specifically, for a matrix which is distributed among a number of players, we consider the problem of determining its rank, of computing entries in its inverse, and of solving linear equations. We also consider related problems such as computing the generalized inner product of vectors held on different servers. We give a general framework for reducing these multi-player problems to their two-player counterparts, showing that the randomized $s$-player communication complexity of these problems is at least $s$ times the randomized two-player communication complexity. Provided the problem has a certain amount of algebraic symmetry, which we formally define, we can show the hardest input distribution is a symmetric distribution, and therefore apply a recent multi-player lower bound technique of Phillips et al. Further, we give new two-player lower bounds for a number of these problems. In particular, our optimal lower bound for the two-player version of the matrix rank problem resolves an open question of Sun and Wang. A common feature of our lower bounds is that they apply even to the special threshold promise
This article belongs to a series on geometric complexity theory (GCT), an approach to the P vs. NP and related problems through algebraic geometry and representation theory. The basic principle behind this approach is called the flip. In essence, it reduces the negative hypothesis in complexity theory (the lower bound problems), such as the P vs. NP problem in characteristic zero, to the positive hypothesis in complexity theory (the upper bound problems): specifically, to showing that the problems of deciding nonvanishing of the fundamental structural constants in representation theory and algebraic geometry, such as the well known plethysm constants--or rather certain relaxed forms of these decision probelms--belong to the complexity class P. In this article, we suggest a plan for implementing the flip, i.e., for showing that these relaxed decision problems belong to P. This is based on the reduction of the preceding complexity-theoretic positive hypotheses to mathematical positivity hypotheses: specifically, to showing that there exist positive formulae--i.e. formulae with nonnegative coefficients--for the structural constants under consideration and certain functions associated with them. These turn out be intimately related to the similar positivity properties of the Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials and the multiplicative structural constants of the canonical (global crystal) bases in the theory of Drinfeld-Jimbo quantum groups. The known proofs of these positivity properties depend on the Riemann hypothesis over finite fields and the related results. Thus the reduction here, in conjunction with the flip, in essence, says that the validity of the P vs. NP conjecture in characteristic zero is intimately linked to the Riemann hypothesis over finite fields and related problems.