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Multi-Quadratic Sum-Of-Squares Lower Bounds Imply VNC ¹ ≠ VNP

Authors Benjamin Rossman , Davidson Zhu

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LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.113.pdf
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ACM Subject Classification
  • Theory of computation → Algebraic complexity theory
Keywords
  • sum-of-squares
  • arithmetic formulas

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Abstract

The sum-of-squares (SoS) complexity of a d-multiquadratic polynomial f (quadratic in each of d blocks of n variables) is the minimum s such that f = ∑_{i = 1}^s g_i² with each g_i d-multilinear. In the case d = 2, Hrubeš, Wigderson and Yehudayoff [Hrubeš et al., 2011] showed that an n^{1+Ω(1)} lower bound on the SoS complexity of explicit biquadratic polynomials implies an exponential lower bound for non-commutative arithmetic circuits. In this paper, we establish an analogous connection between general multiquadratic sum-of-squares and commutative arithmetic formulas. Specifically, we show that an n^{d-o(log d)} lower bound on the SoS complexity of explicit d-multiquadratic polynomials, for any d = d(n) with ω(1) ≤ d(n) ≤ O((log n)/(log log n)), would separate the algebraic complexity classes VNC¹ and VNP.

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Benjamin Rossman and Davidson Zhu. Multi-Quadratic Sum-Of-Squares Lower Bounds Imply VNC ¹ ≠ VNP. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 113:1-113:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.113

Author Details

Benjamin Rossman
  • Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Davidson Zhu
  • Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

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