51 Search Results for "Santhanam, Rahul"


Document
Total NP Search Problems with Abundant Solutions

Authors: Jiawei Li

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 287, 15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2024)


Abstract
We define a new complexity class TFAP to capture TFNP problems that possess abundant solutions for each input. We identify several problems across diverse fields that belong to TFAP, including WeakPigeon (finding a collision in a mapping from [2n] pigeons to [n] holes), Yamakawa-Zhandry’s problem [Takashi Yamakawa and Mark Zhandry, 2022], and all problems in TFZPP. Conversely, we introduce the notion of "semi-gluability" to characterize TFNP problems that could have a unique or a very limited number of solutions for certain inputs. We prove that there is no black-box reduction from any "semi-gluable" problems to any TFAP problems. Furthermore, it can be extended to rule out randomized black-box reduction in most cases. We identify that the majority of common TFNP subclasses, including PPA, PPAD, PPADS, PPP, PLS, CLS, SOPL, and UEOPL, are "semi-gluable". This leads to a broad array of oracle separation results within TFNP regime. As a corollary, UEOPL^O ⊈ PWPP^O relative to an oracle O.

Cite as

Jiawei Li. Total NP Search Problems with Abundant Solutions. In 15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 287, pp. 75:1-75:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{li:LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.75,
  author =	{Li, Jiawei},
  title =	{{Total NP Search Problems with Abundant Solutions}},
  booktitle =	{15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2024)},
  pages =	{75:1--75:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-309-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{287},
  editor =	{Guruswami, Venkatesan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.75},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-196031},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.75},
  annote =	{Keywords: TFNP, Pigeonhole Principle}
}
Document
Stretching Demi-Bits and Nondeterministic-Secure Pseudorandomness

Authors: Iddo Tzameret and Lu-Ming Zhang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 287, 15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2024)


Abstract
We develop the theory of cryptographic nondeterministic-secure pseudorandomness beyond the point reached by Rudich’s original work [S. Rudich, 1997], and apply it to draw new consequences in average-case complexity and proof complexity. Specifically, we show the following: Demi-bit stretch: Super-bits and demi-bits are variants of cryptographic pseudorandom generators which are secure against nondeterministic statistical tests [S. Rudich, 1997]. They were introduced to rule out certain approaches to proving strong complexity lower bounds beyond the limitations set out by the Natural Proofs barrier of Razborov and Rudich [A. A. Razborov and S. Rudich, 1997]. Whether demi-bits are stretchable at all had been an open problem since their introduction. We answer this question affirmatively by showing that: every demi-bit b:{0,1}ⁿ → {0,1}^{n+1} can be stretched into sublinear many demi-bits b':{0,1}ⁿ → {0,1}^{n+n^{c}}, for every constant 0 < c < 1. Average-case hardness: Using work by Santhanam [Rahul Santhanam, 2020], we apply our results to obtain new average-case Kolmogorov complexity results: we show that K^{poly}[n-O(1)] is zero-error average-case hard against NP/poly machines iff K^{poly}[n-o(n)] is, where for a function s(n):ℕ → ℕ, K^{poly}[s(n)] denotes the languages of all strings x ∈ {0,1}ⁿ for which there are (fixed) polytime Turing machines of description-length at most s(n) that output x. Characterising super-bits by nondeterministic unpredictability: In the deterministic setting, Yao [Yao, 1982] proved that super-polynomial hardness of pseudorandom generators is equivalent to ("next-bit") unpredictability. Unpredictability roughly means that given any strict prefix of a random string, it is infeasible to predict the next bit. We initiate the study of unpredictability beyond the deterministic setting (in the cryptographic regime), and characterise the nondeterministic hardness of generators from an unpredictability perspective. Specifically, we propose four stronger notions of unpredictability: NP/poly-unpredictability, coNP/poly-unpredictability, ∩-unpredictability and ∪-unpredictability, and show that super-polynomial nondeterministic hardness of generators lies between ∩-unpredictability and ∪-unpredictability. Characterising super-bits by nondeterministic hard-core predicates: We introduce a nondeterministic variant of hard-core predicates, called super-core predicates. We show that the existence of a super-bit is equivalent to the existence of a super-core of some non-shrinking function. This serves as an analogue of the equivalence between the existence of a strong pseudorandom generator and the existence of a hard-core of some one-way function [Goldreich and Levin, 1989; Håstad et al., 1999], and provides a first alternative characterisation of super-bits. We also prove that a certain class of functions, which may have hard-cores, cannot possess any super-core.

Cite as

Iddo Tzameret and Lu-Ming Zhang. Stretching Demi-Bits and Nondeterministic-Secure Pseudorandomness. In 15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 287, pp. 95:1-95:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{tzameret_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.95,
  author =	{Tzameret, Iddo and Zhang, Lu-Ming},
  title =	{{Stretching Demi-Bits and Nondeterministic-Secure Pseudorandomness}},
  booktitle =	{15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2024)},
  pages =	{95:1--95:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-309-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{287},
  editor =	{Guruswami, Venkatesan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.95},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-196234},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.95},
  annote =	{Keywords: Pseudorandomness, Cryptography, Natural Proofs, Nondeterminism, Lower bounds}
}
Document
Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems (Dagstuhl Seminar 23111)

Authors: Anna Gál, Meena Mahajan, Rahul Santhanam, Till Tantau, and Manaswi Paraashar

Published in: Dagstuhl Reports, Volume 13, Issue 3 (2023)


Abstract
This report documents the program and activities of Dagstuhl Seminar 23111 "Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems", which was held in-person in March 2023 (the previous instance of the seminar series had been held online in March 2021). Following a description of the seminar’s objectives and its overall organization, this report lists the different major talks given during the seminar in alphabetical order of speakers, followed by the abstracts of the talks, including the main references and relevant sources where applicable. The return to an in-person setting allowed an intense atmosphere of active research and interaction throughout the five day seminar.

Cite as

Anna Gál, Meena Mahajan, Rahul Santhanam, Till Tantau, and Manaswi Paraashar. Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems (Dagstuhl Seminar 23111). In Dagstuhl Reports, Volume 13, Issue 3, pp. 17-31, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@Article{gal_et_al:DagRep.13.3.17,
  author =	{G\'{a}l, Anna and Mahajan, Meena and Santhanam, Rahul and Tantau, Till and Paraashar, Manaswi},
  title =	{{Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems (Dagstuhl Seminar 23111)}},
  pages =	{17--31},
  journal =	{Dagstuhl Reports},
  ISSN =	{2192-5283},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{13},
  number =	{3},
  editor =	{G\'{a}l, Anna and Mahajan, Meena and Santhanam, Rahul and Tantau, Till and Paraashar, Manaswi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/DagRep.13.3.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-192261},
  doi =		{10.4230/DagRep.13.3.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: circuit complexity, communication complexity, computational complexity, lower bounds, randomness}
}
Document
Bounded Relativization

Authors: Shuichi Hirahara, Zhenjian Lu, and Hanlin Ren

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 264, 38th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2023)


Abstract
Relativization is one of the most fundamental concepts in complexity theory, which explains the difficulty of resolving major open problems. In this paper, we propose a weaker notion of relativization called bounded relativization. For a complexity class ℭ, we say that a statement is ℭ-relativizing if the statement holds relative to every oracle 𝒪 ∈ ℭ. It is easy to see that every result that relativizes also ℭ-relativizes for every complexity class ℭ. On the other hand, we observe that many non-relativizing results, such as IP = PSPACE, are in fact PSPACE-relativizing. First, we use the idea of bounded relativization to obtain new lower bound results, including the following nearly maximum circuit lower bound: for every constant ε > 0, BPE^{MCSP}/2^{εn} ⊈ SIZE[2ⁿ/n]. We prove this by PSPACE-relativizing the recent pseudodeterministic pseudorandom generator by Lu, Oliveira, and Santhanam (STOC 2021). Next, we study the limitations of PSPACE-relativizing proof techniques, and show that a seemingly minor improvement over the known results using PSPACE-relativizing techniques would imply a breakthrough separation NP ≠ L. For example: - Impagliazzo and Wigderson (JCSS 2001) proved that if EXP ≠ BPP, then BPP admits infinitely-often subexponential-time heuristic derandomization. We show that their result is PSPACE-relativizing, and that improving it to worst-case derandomization using PSPACE-relativizing techniques implies NP ≠ L. - Oliveira and Santhanam (STOC 2017) recently proved that every dense subset in P admits an infinitely-often subexponential-time pseudodeterministic construction, which we observe is PSPACE-relativizing. Improving this to almost-everywhere (pseudodeterministic) or (infinitely-often) deterministic constructions by PSPACE-relativizing techniques implies NP ≠ L. - Santhanam (SICOMP 2009) proved that pr-MA does not have fixed polynomial-size circuits. This lower bound can be shown PSPACE-relativizing, and we show that improving it to an almost-everywhere lower bound using PSPACE-relativizing techniques implies NP ≠ L. In fact, we show that if we can use PSPACE-relativizing techniques to obtain the above-mentioned improvements, then PSPACE ≠ EXPH. We obtain our barrier results by constructing suitable oracles computable in EXPH relative to which these improvements are impossible.

Cite as

Shuichi Hirahara, Zhenjian Lu, and Hanlin Ren. Bounded Relativization. In 38th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 264, pp. 6:1-6:45, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{hirahara_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2023.6,
  author =	{Hirahara, Shuichi and Lu, Zhenjian and Ren, Hanlin},
  title =	{{Bounded Relativization}},
  booktitle =	{38th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2023)},
  pages =	{6:1--6:45},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-282-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{264},
  editor =	{Ta-Shma, Amnon},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2023.6},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-182764},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2023.6},
  annote =	{Keywords: relativization, circuit lower bound, derandomization, explicit construction, pseudodeterministic algorithms, interactive proofs}
}
Document
An Algorithmic Approach to Uniform Lower Bounds

Authors: Rahul Santhanam

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 264, 38th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2023)


Abstract
We propose a new family of circuit-based sampling tasks, such that non-trivial algorithmic solutions to certain tasks from this family imply frontier uniform lower bounds such as "NP is not in uniform ACC⁰" and "NP does not have uniform polynomial-size depth-two threshold circuits". Indeed, the most general versions of our sampling tasks have implications for central open problems such as NP vs P and PSPACE vs P. We argue the soundness of our approach by showing that the non-trivial algorithmic solutions we require do follow from standard cryptographic assumptions. In addition, we give evidence that a version of our approach for uniform circuits is necessary in order to separate NP from P or PSPACE from P. We give an algorithmic characterization for the PSPACE vs P question: PSPACE ≠ P iff either E has sub-exponential time non-uniform algorithms infinitely often or there are non-trivial space-efficient solutions to our sampling tasks for uniform Boolean circuits. We show how to use our framework to capture uniform versions of known non-uniform lower bounds, as well as classical uniform lower bounds such as the space hierarchy theorem and Allender’s uniform lower bound for the Permanent. We also apply our framework to prove new lower bounds: NP does not have polynomial-size uniform AC⁰ circuits with a bottom layer of MOD 6 gates, nor does it have polynomial-size uniform AC⁰ circuits with a bottom layer of threshold gates. Our proofs exploit recently defined probabilistic time-bounded variants of Kolmogorov complexity [Zhenjian Lu et al., 2022; Halley Goldberg et al., 2022; Halley Goldberg et al., 2022].

Cite as

Rahul Santhanam. An Algorithmic Approach to Uniform Lower Bounds. In 38th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 264, pp. 35:1-35:26, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{santhanam:LIPIcs.CCC.2023.35,
  author =	{Santhanam, Rahul},
  title =	{{An Algorithmic Approach to Uniform Lower Bounds}},
  booktitle =	{38th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2023)},
  pages =	{35:1--35:26},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-282-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{264},
  editor =	{Ta-Shma, Amnon},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2023.35},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-183053},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2023.35},
  annote =	{Keywords: Probabilistic Kolmogorov complexity, sampling algorithms, uniform lower bounds}
}
Document
Invited Talk
Why MCSP Is a More Important Problem Than SAT (Invited Talk)

Authors: Rahul Santhanam

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 250, 42nd IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2022)


Abstract
CNF Satisfiability (SAT) and its variants are generally considered the central problems in complexity theory, due to their applications in the theory of NP-completeness, logic, verification, probabilistically checkable proofs and parameterized complexity, among other areas. We challenge this conventional wisdom and argue that analysing the Minimum Circuit Size Problem (MCSP) and its relatives is more important from the perspective of fundamental problems in complexity theory, such as complexity lower bounds, minimal assumptions for cryptography, a robust theory of average-case complexity, and optimal results in hardness of approximation.

Cite as

Rahul Santhanam. Why MCSP Is a More Important Problem Than SAT (Invited Talk). In 42nd IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 250, p. 2:1, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{santhanam:LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2022.2,
  author =	{Santhanam, Rahul},
  title =	{{Why MCSP Is a More Important Problem Than SAT}},
  booktitle =	{42nd IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2022)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:1},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-261-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{250},
  editor =	{Dawar, Anuj and Guruswami, Venkatesan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2022.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-173943},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2022.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Minimum Circuit Size Problem, Satisfiability, Cryptography, Learning, Approximation}
}
Document
Symmetry of Information from Meta-Complexity

Authors: Shuichi Hirahara

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 234, 37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022)


Abstract
Symmetry of information for time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity is a hypothetical inequality that relates time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity and its conditional analogue. In 1992, Longpré and Watanabe showed that symmetry of information holds if NP is easy in the worst case, which has been the state of the art over the last three decades. In this paper, we significantly improve this result by showing that symmetry of information holds under the weaker assumption that NP is easy on average. In fact, our proof techniques are applicable to any resource-bounded Kolmogorov complexity and enable proving symmetry of information from an efficient algorithm that computes resource-bounded Kolmogorov complexity. We demonstrate the significance of our proof techniques by presenting two applications. First, using that symmetry of information does not hold for Levin’s Kt-complexity, we prove that randomized Kt-complexity cannot be computed in time 2^o(n) on inputs of length n, which improves the previous quasi-polynomial lower bound of Oliveira (ICALP 2019). Our proof implements Kolmogorov’s insightful approach to the P versus NP problem in the case of randomized Kt-complexity. Second, we consider the question of excluding Heuristica, i.e., a world in which NP is easy on average but NP ≠ P, from Impagliazzo’s five worlds: Using symmetry of information, we prove that Heuristica is excluded if the problem of approximating time-bounded conditional Kolmogorov complexity K^t(x∣y) up to some additive error is NP-hard for t ≫ |y|. We complement this result by proving NP-hardness of approximating sublinear-time-bounded conditional Kolmogorov complexity up to a multiplicative factor of |x|^{1/(log log |x|)^O(1)} for t ≪ |y|. Our NP-hardness proof presents a new connection between sublinear-time-bounded conditional Kolmogorov complexity and a secret sharing scheme.

Cite as

Shuichi Hirahara. Symmetry of Information from Meta-Complexity. In 37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 234, pp. 26:1-26:41, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{hirahara:LIPIcs.CCC.2022.26,
  author =	{Hirahara, Shuichi},
  title =	{{Symmetry of Information from Meta-Complexity}},
  booktitle =	{37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:41},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-241-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{234},
  editor =	{Lovett, Shachar},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2022.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-165880},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2022.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: resource-bounded Kolmogorov complexity, average-case complexity, pseudorandomness, hardness of approximation, unconditional lower bound}
}
Document
On Randomized Reductions to the Random Strings

Authors: Michael Saks and Rahul Santhanam

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 234, 37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022)


Abstract
We study the power of randomized polynomial-time non-adaptive reductions to the problem of approximating Kolmogorov complexity and its polynomial-time bounded variants. As our first main result, we give a sharp dichotomy for randomized non-adaptive reducibility to approximating Kolmogorov complexity. We show that any computable language L that has a randomized polynomial-time non-adaptive reduction (satisfying a natural honesty condition) to ω(log(n))-approximating the Kolmogorov complexity is in AM ∩ coAM. On the other hand, using results of Hirahara [Shuichi Hirahara, 2020], it follows that every language in NEXP has a randomized polynomial-time non-adaptive reduction (satisfying the same honesty condition as before) to O(log(n))-approximating the Kolmogorov complexity. As our second main result, we give the first negative evidence against the NP-hardness of polynomial-time bounded Kolmogorov complexity with respect to randomized reductions. We show that for every polynomial t', there is a polynomial t such that if there is a randomized time t' non-adaptive reduction (satisfying a natural honesty condition) from SAT to ω(log(n))-approximating K^t complexity, then either NE = coNE or 𝖤 has sub-exponential size non-deterministic circuits infinitely often.

Cite as

Michael Saks and Rahul Santhanam. On Randomized Reductions to the Random Strings. In 37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 234, pp. 29:1-29:30, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{saks_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2022.29,
  author =	{Saks, Michael and Santhanam, Rahul},
  title =	{{On Randomized Reductions to the Random Strings}},
  booktitle =	{37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022)},
  pages =	{29:1--29:30},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-241-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{234},
  editor =	{Lovett, Shachar},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2022.29},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-165912},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2022.29},
  annote =	{Keywords: Kolmogorov complexity, randomized reductions}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
Learning Algorithms Versus Automatability of Frege Systems

Authors: Ján Pich and Rahul Santhanam

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 229, 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)


Abstract
We connect learning algorithms and algorithms automating proof search in propositional proof systems: for every sufficiently strong, well-behaved propositional proof system P, we prove that the following statements are equivalent, - Provable learning. P proves efficiently that p-size circuits are learnable by subexponential-size circuits over the uniform distribution with membership queries. - Provable automatability. P proves efficiently that P is automatable by non-uniform circuits on propositional formulas expressing p-size circuit lower bounds. Here, P is sufficiently strong and well-behaved if I.-III. holds: I. P p-simulates Jeřábek’s system WF (which strengthens the Extended Frege system EF by a surjective weak pigeonhole principle); II. P satisfies some basic properties of standard proof systems which p-simulate WF; III. P proves efficiently for some Boolean function h that h is hard on average for circuits of subexponential size. For example, if III. holds for P = WF, then Items 1 and 2 are equivalent for P = WF. The notion of automatability in Item 2 is slightly modified so that the automating algorithm outputs a proof of a given formula (expressing a p-size circuit lower bound) in p-time in the length of the shortest proof of a closely related but different formula (expressing an average-case subexponential-size circuit lower bound). If there is a function h ∈ NE∩ coNE which is hard on average for circuits of size 2^{n/4}, for each sufficiently big n, then there is an explicit propositional proof system P satisfying properties I.-III., i.e. the equivalence of Items 1 and 2 holds for P.

Cite as

Ján Pich and Rahul Santhanam. Learning Algorithms Versus Automatability of Frege Systems. In 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 229, pp. 101:1-101:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{pich_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.101,
  author =	{Pich, J\'{a}n and Santhanam, Rahul},
  title =	{{Learning Algorithms Versus Automatability of Frege Systems}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)},
  pages =	{101:1--101:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-235-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{229},
  editor =	{Boja\'{n}czyk, Miko{\l}aj and Merelli, Emanuela and Woodruff, David P.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.101},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-164427},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.101},
  annote =	{Keywords: learning algorithms, automatability, proof complexity}
}
Document
A Relativization Perspective on Meta-Complexity

Authors: Hanlin Ren and Rahul Santhanam

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 219, 39th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2022)


Abstract
Meta-complexity studies the complexity of computational problems about complexity theory, such as the Minimum Circuit Size Problem (MCSP) and its variants. We show that a relativization barrier applies to many important open questions in meta-complexity. We give relativized worlds where: 1) MCSP can be solved in deterministic polynomial time, but the search version of MCSP cannot be solved in deterministic polynomial time, even approximately. In contrast, Carmosino, Impagliazzo, Kabanets, Kolokolova [CCC'16] gave a randomized approximate search-to-decision reduction for MCSP with a relativizing proof. 2) The complexities of MCSP[2^{n/2}] and MCSP[2^{n/4}] are different, in both worst-case and average-case settings. Thus the complexity of MCSP is not "robust" to the choice of the size function. 3) Levin’s time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity Kt(x) can be approximated to a factor (2+ε) in polynomial time, for any ε > 0. 4) Natural proofs do not exist, and neither do auxiliary-input one-way functions. In contrast, Santhanam [ITCS'20] gave a relativizing proof that the non-existence of natural proofs implies the existence of one-way functions under a conjecture about optimal hitting sets. 5) DistNP does not reduce to GapMINKT by a family of "robust" reductions. This presents a technical barrier for solving a question of Hirahara [FOCS'20].

Cite as

Hanlin Ren and Rahul Santhanam. A Relativization Perspective on Meta-Complexity. In 39th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 219, pp. 54:1-54:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{ren_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2022.54,
  author =	{Ren, Hanlin and Santhanam, Rahul},
  title =	{{A Relativization Perspective on Meta-Complexity}},
  booktitle =	{39th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2022)},
  pages =	{54:1--54:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-222-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{219},
  editor =	{Berenbrink, Petra and Monmege, Benjamin},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2022.54},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-158646},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2022.54},
  annote =	{Keywords: meta-complexity, relativization, minimum circuit size problem}
}
Document
Bounded Indistinguishability for Simple Sources

Authors: Andrej Bogdanov, Krishnamoorthy Dinesh, Yuval Filmus, Yuval Ishai, Avi Kaplan, and Akshayaram Srinivasan

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)


Abstract
A pair of sources X, Y over {0,1}ⁿ are k-indistinguishable if their projections to any k coordinates are identically distributed. Can some AC^0 function distinguish between two such sources when k is big, say k = n^{0.1}? Braverman’s theorem (Commun. ACM 2011) implies a negative answer when X is uniform, whereas Bogdanov et al. (Crypto 2016) observe that this is not the case in general. We initiate a systematic study of this question for natural classes of low-complexity sources, including ones that arise in cryptographic applications, obtaining positive results, negative results, and barriers. In particular: - There exist Ω(√n)-indistinguishable X, Y, samplable by degree-O(log n) polynomial maps (over F₂) and by poly(n)-size decision trees, that are Ω(1)-distinguishable by OR. - There exists a function f such that all f(d, ε)-indistinguishable X, Y that are samplable by degree-d polynomial maps are ε-indistinguishable by OR for all sufficiently large n. Moreover, f(1, ε) = ⌈log(1/ε)⌉ + 1 and f(2, ε) = O(log^{10}(1/ε)). - Extending (weaker versions of) the above negative results to AC^0 distinguishers would require settling a conjecture of Servedio and Viola (ECCC 2012). Concretely, if every pair of n^{0.9}-indistinguishable X, Y that are samplable by linear maps is ε-indistinguishable by AC^0 circuits, then the binary inner product function can have at most an ε-correlation with AC^0 ◦ ⊕ circuits. Finally, we motivate the question and our results by presenting applications of positive results to low-complexity secret sharing and applications of negative results to leakage-resilient cryptography.

Cite as

Andrej Bogdanov, Krishnamoorthy Dinesh, Yuval Filmus, Yuval Ishai, Avi Kaplan, and Akshayaram Srinivasan. Bounded Indistinguishability for Simple Sources. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 26:1-26:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{bogdanov_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.26,
  author =	{Bogdanov, Andrej and Dinesh, Krishnamoorthy and Filmus, Yuval and Ishai, Yuval and Kaplan, Avi and Srinivasan, Akshayaram},
  title =	{{Bounded Indistinguishability for Simple Sources}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-217-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{215},
  editor =	{Braverman, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156223},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: Pseudorandomness, bounded indistinguishability, complexity of sampling, constant-depth circuits, secret sharing, leakage-resilient cryptography}
}
Document
Errorless Versus Error-Prone Average-Case Complexity

Authors: Shuichi Hirahara and Rahul Santhanam

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)


Abstract
We consider the question of whether errorless and error-prone notions of average-case hardness are equivalent, and make several contributions. First, we study this question in the context of hardness for NP, and connect it to the long-standing open question of whether there are instance checkers for NP. We show that there is an efficient non-uniform non-adaptive reduction from errorless to error-prone heuristics for NP if and only if there is an efficient non-uniform average-case non-adaptive instance-checker for NP. We also suggest an approach to proving equivalence of the two notions of average-case hardness for PH. Second, we show unconditionally that error-prone average-case hardness is equivalent to errorless average-case hardness for P against NC¹ and for UP ∩ coUP against P. Third, we apply our results about errorless and error-prone average-case hardness to get new equivalences between hitting set generators and pseudo-random generators.

Cite as

Shuichi Hirahara and Rahul Santhanam. Errorless Versus Error-Prone Average-Case Complexity. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 84:1-84:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{hirahara_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.84,
  author =	{Hirahara, Shuichi and Santhanam, Rahul},
  title =	{{Errorless Versus Error-Prone Average-Case Complexity}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{84:1--84:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-217-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{215},
  editor =	{Braverman, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.84},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156803},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.84},
  annote =	{Keywords: average-case complexity, instance checker, pseudorandomness}
}
Document
Excluding PH Pessiland

Authors: Shuichi Hirahara and Rahul Santhanam

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)


Abstract
Heuristica and Pessiland are "worlds" of average-case complexity [Impagliazzo95] that are considered unlikely but that current techniques are unable to rule out. Recently, [Hirahara20] considered a PH (Polynomial Hierarchy) analogue of Heuristica, and showed that to rule it out, it would be sufficient to prove the NP-completeness of the problem GapMINKT^PH of estimating the PH-oracle time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity of a string. In this work, we analogously define "PH Pessiland" to be a world where PH is hard on average but PH-computable pseudo-random generators do not exist. We unconditionally rule out PH-Pessiland in both non-uniform and uniform settings, by showing that the distributional problem of computing PH-oracle time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity of a string over the uniform distribution is complete for an (error-prone) average-case analogue of PH. Moreover, we show the equivalence between error-prone average-case hardness of PH and the existence of PH-computable pseudorandom generators.

Cite as

Shuichi Hirahara and Rahul Santhanam. Excluding PH Pessiland. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 85:1-85:25, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{hirahara_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.85,
  author =	{Hirahara, Shuichi and Santhanam, Rahul},
  title =	{{Excluding PH Pessiland}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{85:1--85:25},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-217-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{215},
  editor =	{Braverman, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.85},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156819},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.85},
  annote =	{Keywords: average-case complexity, pseudorandomness, meta-complexity}
}
Document
Cryptographic Hardness Under Projections for Time-Bounded Kolmogorov Complexity

Authors: Eric Allender, John Gouwar, Shuichi Hirahara, and Caleb Robelle

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 212, 32nd International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2021)


Abstract
A version of time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity, denoted KT, has received attention in the past several years, due to its close connection to circuit complexity and to the Minimum Circuit Size Problem MCSP. Essentially all results about the complexity of MCSP hold also for MKTP (the problem of computing the KT complexity of a string). Both MKTP and MCSP are hard for SZK (Statistical Zero Knowledge) under BPP-Turing reductions; neither is known to be NP-complete. Recently, some hardness results for MKTP were proved that are not (yet) known to hold for MCSP. In particular, MKTP is hard for DET (a subclass of P) under nonuniform ≤^{NC^0}_m reductions. In this paper, we improve this, to show that the complement of MKTP is hard for the (apparently larger) class NISZK_L under not only ≤^{NC^0}_m reductions but even under projections. Also, the complement of MKTP is hard for NISZK under ≤^{P/poly}_m reductions. Here, NISZK is the class of problems with non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs, and NISZK_L is the non-interactive version of the class SZK_L that was studied by Dvir et al. As an application, we provide several improved worst-case to average-case reductions to problems in NP, and we obtain a new lower bound on MKTP (which is currently not known to hold for MCSP).

Cite as

Eric Allender, John Gouwar, Shuichi Hirahara, and Caleb Robelle. Cryptographic Hardness Under Projections for Time-Bounded Kolmogorov Complexity. In 32nd International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 212, pp. 54:1-54:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{allender_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2021.54,
  author =	{Allender, Eric and Gouwar, John and Hirahara, Shuichi and Robelle, Caleb},
  title =	{{Cryptographic Hardness Under Projections for Time-Bounded Kolmogorov Complexity}},
  booktitle =	{32nd International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2021)},
  pages =	{54:1--54:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-214-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{212},
  editor =	{Ahn, Hee-Kap and Sadakane, Kunihiko},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2021.54},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-154875},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2021.54},
  annote =	{Keywords: Kolmogorov Complexity, Interactive Proofs, Minimum Circuit Size Problem, Worst-case to Average-case Reductions}
}
Document
One-Way Functions and a Conditional Variant of MKTP

Authors: Eric Allender, Mahdi Cheraghchi, Dimitrios Myrisiotis, Harsha Tirumala, and Ilya Volkovich

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 213, 41st IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2021)


Abstract
One-way functions (OWFs) are central objects of study in cryptography and computational complexity theory. In a seminal work, Liu and Pass (FOCS 2020) proved that the average-case hardness of computing time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity is equivalent to the existence of OWFs. It remained an open problem to establish such an equivalence for the average-case hardness of some natural NP-complete problem. In this paper, we make progress on this question by studying a conditional variant of the Minimum KT-complexity Problem (MKTP), which we call McKTP, as follows. 1) First, we prove that if McKTP is average-case hard on a polynomial fraction of its instances, then there exist OWFs. 2) Then, we observe that McKTP is NP-complete under polynomial-time randomized reductions. 3) Finally, we prove that the existence of OWFs implies the nontrivial average-case hardness of McKTP. Thus the existence of OWFs is inextricably linked to the average-case hardness of this NP-complete problem. In fact, building on recently-announced results of Ren and Santhanam [Rahul Ilango et al., 2021], we show that McKTP is hard-on-average if and only if there are logspace-computable OWFs.

Cite as

Eric Allender, Mahdi Cheraghchi, Dimitrios Myrisiotis, Harsha Tirumala, and Ilya Volkovich. One-Way Functions and a Conditional Variant of MKTP. In 41st IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 213, pp. 7:1-7:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{allender_et_al:LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2021.7,
  author =	{Allender, Eric and Cheraghchi, Mahdi and Myrisiotis, Dimitrios and Tirumala, Harsha and Volkovich, Ilya},
  title =	{{One-Way Functions and a Conditional Variant of MKTP}},
  booktitle =	{41st IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2021)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-215-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{213},
  editor =	{Boja\'{n}czyk, Miko{\l}aj and Chekuri, Chandra},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops-dev.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2021.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-155181},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2021.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Kolmogorov complexity, KT Complexity, Minimum KT-complexity Problem, MKTP, Conditional KT Complexity, Minimum Conditional KT-complexity Problem, McKTP, one-way functions, OWFs, average-case hardness, pseudorandom generators, PRGs, pseudorandom functions, PRFs, distinguishers, learning algorithms, NP-completeness, reductions}
}
  • Refine by Author
  • 33 Santhanam, Rahul
  • 10 Hirahara, Shuichi
  • 4 Oliveira, Igor C.
  • 4 Oliveira, Igor Carboni
  • 3 Gál, Anna
  • Show More...

  • Refine by Classification
  • 16 Theory of computation → Circuit complexity
  • 12 Theory of computation → Computational complexity and cryptography
  • 9 Theory of computation → Complexity classes
  • 9 Theory of computation → Pseudorandomness and derandomization
  • 8 Theory of computation → Problems, reductions and completeness
  • Show More...

  • Refine by Keyword
  • 9 Minimum Circuit Size Problem
  • 7 computational complexity
  • 5 circuit lower bounds
  • 5 proof complexity
  • 4 Kolmogorov complexity
  • Show More...

  • Refine by Type
  • 51 document

  • Refine by Publication Year
  • 10 2021
  • 8 2020
  • 8 2022
  • 5 2019
  • 4 2018
  • Show More...

Questions / Remarks / Feedback
X

Feedback for Dagstuhl Publishing


Thanks for your feedback!

Feedback submitted

Could not send message

Please try again later or send an E-mail