Inspired by the classic problem of Boolean function monotonicity testing, we investigate the testability of other well-studied properties of combinatorial finite set systems, specifically intersecting families and union-closed families. A function f: {0,1}ⁿ → {0,1} is intersecting (respectively, union-closed) if its set of satisfying assignments corresponds to an intersecting family (respectively, a union-closed family) of subsets of [n]. Our main results are that - in sharp contrast with the property of being a monotone set system - the property of being an intersecting set system, and the property of being a union-closed set system, both turn out to be information-theoretically difficult to test. We show that: - For ε ≥ Ω(1/√n), any non-adaptive two-sided ε-tester for intersectingness must make 2^{Ω(n^{1/4}/√{ε})} queries. We also give a 2^{Ω(√{n log(1/ε)})}-query lower bound for non-adaptive one-sided ε-testers for intersectingness. - For ε ≥ 1/2^{Ω(n^{0.49})}, any non-adaptive two-sided ε-tester for union-closedness must make n^{Ω(log(1/ε))} queries. Thus, neither intersectingness nor union-closedness shares the poly(n,1/ε)-query non-adaptive testability that is enjoyed by monotonicity. To complement our lower bounds, we also give a simple poly(n^{√{nlog(1/ε)}},1/ε)-query, one-sided, non-adaptive algorithm for ε-testing each of these properties (intersectingness and union-closedness). We thus achieve nearly tight upper and lower bounds for two-sided testing of intersectingness when ε = Θ(1/√n), and for one-sided testing of intersectingness when ε = Θ(1).
@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.33, author = {Chen, Xi and De, Anindya and Li, Yuhao and Nadimpalli, Shivam and Servedio, Rocco A.}, title = {{Testing Intersecting and Union-Closed Families}}, booktitle = {15th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2024)}, pages = {33:1--33:23}, 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.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.33}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-195610}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2024.33}, annote = {Keywords: Sublinear algorithms, property testing, computational complexity, monotonicity, intersecting families, union-closed families} }
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