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Documents authored by Chou, Chi-Ning


Document
APPROX
Sketching Approximability of (Weak) Monarchy Predicates

Authors: Chi-Ning Chou, Alexander Golovnev, Amirbehshad Shahrasbi, Madhu Sudan, and Santhoshini Velusamy

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 245, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022)


Abstract
We analyze the sketching approximability of constraint satisfaction problems on Boolean domains, where the constraints are balanced linear threshold functions applied to literals. In particular, we explore the approximability of monarchy-like functions where the value of the function is determined by a weighted combination of the vote of the first variable (the president) and the sum of the votes of all remaining variables. The pure version of this function is when the president can only be overruled by when all remaining variables agree. For every k ≥ 5, we show that CSPs where the underlying predicate is a pure monarchy function on k variables have no non-trivial sketching approximation algorithm in o(√n) space. We also show infinitely many weaker monarchy functions for which CSPs using such constraints are non-trivially approximable by O(log(n)) space sketching algorithms. Moreover, we give the first example of sketching approximable asymmetric Boolean CSPs. Our results work within the framework of Chou, Golovnev, Sudan, and Velusamy (FOCS 2021) that characterizes the sketching approximability of all CSPs. Their framework can be applied naturally to get a computer-aided analysis of the approximability of any specific constraint satisfaction problem. The novelty of our work is in using their work to get an analysis that applies to infinitely many problems simultaneously.

Cite as

Chi-Ning Chou, Alexander Golovnev, Amirbehshad Shahrasbi, Madhu Sudan, and Santhoshini Velusamy. Sketching Approximability of (Weak) Monarchy Predicates. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 245, pp. 35:1-35:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


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@InProceedings{chou_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.35,
  author =	{Chou, Chi-Ning and Golovnev, Alexander and Shahrasbi, Amirbehshad and Sudan, Madhu and Velusamy, Santhoshini},
  title =	{{Sketching Approximability of (Weak) Monarchy Predicates}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022)},
  pages =	{35:1--35:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-249-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{245},
  editor =	{Chakrabarti, Amit and Swamy, Chaitanya},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.35},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-171573},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.35},
  annote =	{Keywords: sketching algorithms, approximability, linear threshold functions}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
Limitations of Local Quantum Algorithms on Random MAX-k-XOR and Beyond

Authors: Chi-Ning Chou, Peter J. Love, Juspreet Singh Sandhu, and Jonathan Shi

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


Abstract
We introduce a notion of generic local algorithm, which strictly generalizes existing frameworks of local algorithms such as factors of i.i.d. by capturing local quantum algorithms such as the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA). Motivated by a question of Farhi et al. [arXiv:1910.08187, 2019], we then show limitations of generic local algorithms including QAOA on random instances of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs). Specifically, we show that any generic local algorithm whose assignment to a vertex depends only on a local neighborhood with o(n) other vertices (such as the QAOA at depth less than εlog(n)) cannot arbitrarily-well approximate boolean CSPs if the problem satisfies a geometric property from statistical physics called the coupled overlap-gap property (OGP) [Chen et al., Annals of Probability, 47(3), 2019]. We show that the random MAX-k-XOR problem has this property when k ≥ 4 is even by extending the corresponding result for diluted k-spin glasses. Our concentration lemmas confirm a conjecture of Brandao et al. [arXiv:1812.04170, 2018] asserting that the landscape independence of QAOA extends to logarithmic depth - in other words, for every fixed choice of QAOA angle parameters, the algorithm at logarithmic depth performs almost equally well on almost all instances. One of these lemmas is a strengthening of McDiarmid’s inequality, applicable when the random variables have a highly biased distribution, and may be of independent interest.

Cite as

Chi-Ning Chou, Peter J. Love, Juspreet Singh Sandhu, and Jonathan Shi. Limitations of Local Quantum Algorithms on Random MAX-k-XOR and Beyond. In 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 229, pp. 41:1-41:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


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@InProceedings{chou_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.41,
  author =	{Chou, Chi-Ning and Love, Peter J. and Sandhu, Juspreet Singh and Shi, Jonathan},
  title =	{{Limitations of Local Quantum Algorithms on Random MAX-k-XOR and Beyond}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)},
  pages =	{41:1--41:20},
  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.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.41},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-163822},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.41},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantum Algorithms, Spin Glasses, Hardness of Approximation, Local Algorithms, Concentration Inequalities, Overlap Gap Property}
}
Document
Quantum Meets the Minimum Circuit Size Problem

Authors: Nai-Hui Chia, Chi-Ning Chou, Jiayu Zhang, and Ruizhe Zhang

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


Abstract
In this work, we initiate the study of the Minimum Circuit Size Problem (MCSP) in the quantum setting. MCSP is a problem to compute the circuit complexity of Boolean functions. It is a fascinating problem in complexity theory - its hardness is mysterious, and a better understanding of its hardness can have surprising implications to many fields in computer science. We first define and investigate the basic complexity-theoretic properties of minimum quantum circuit size problems for three natural objects: Boolean functions, unitaries, and quantum states. We show that these problems are not trivially in NP but in QCMA (or have QCMA protocols). Next, we explore the relations between the three quantum MCSPs and their variants. We discover that some reductions that are not known for classical MCSP exist for quantum MCSPs for unitaries and states, e.g., search-to-decision reductions and self-reductions. Finally, we systematically generalize results known for classical MCSP to the quantum setting (including quantum cryptography, quantum learning theory, quantum circuit lower bounds, and quantum fine-grained complexity) and also find new connections to tomography and quantum gravity. Due to the fundamental differences between classical and quantum circuits, most of our results require extra care and reveal properties and phenomena unique to the quantum setting. Our findings could be of interest for future studies, and we post several open problems for further exploration along this direction.

Cite as

Nai-Hui Chia, Chi-Ning Chou, Jiayu Zhang, and Ruizhe Zhang. Quantum Meets the Minimum Circuit Size Problem. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 47:1-47:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


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@InProceedings{chia_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.47,
  author =	{Chia, Nai-Hui and Chou, Chi-Ning and Zhang, Jiayu and Zhang, Ruizhe},
  title =	{{Quantum Meets the Minimum Circuit Size Problem}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{47:1--47:16},
  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.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.47},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156433},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.47},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantum Computation, Quantum Complexity, Minimum Circuit Size Problem}
}
Document
Spoofing Linear Cross-Entropy Benchmarking in Shallow Quantum Circuits

Authors: Boaz Barak, Chi-Ning Chou, and Xun Gao

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 185, 12th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2021)


Abstract
The linear cross-entropy benchmark (Linear XEB) has been used as a test for procedures simulating quantum circuits. Given a quantum circuit C with n inputs and outputs and purported simulator whose output is distributed according to a distribution p over {0,1}ⁿ, the linear XEB fidelity of the simulator is ℱ_C(p) = 2ⁿ 𝔼_{x ∼ p} q_C(x) -1, where q_C(x) is the probability that x is output from the distribution C |0ⁿ⟩. A trivial simulator (e.g., the uniform distribution) satisfies ℱ_C(p) = 0, while Google’s noisy quantum simulation of a 53-qubit circuit C achieved a fidelity value of (2.24 ±0.21)×10^{-3} (Arute et. al., Nature'19). In this work we give a classical randomized algorithm that for a given circuit C of depth d with Haar random 2-qubit gates achieves in expectation a fidelity value of Ω(n/L⋅15^{-d}) in running time poly(n,2^L). Here L is the size of the light cone of C: the maximum number of input bits that each output bit depends on. In particular, we obtain a polynomial-time algorithm that achieves large fidelity of ω(1) for depth O(√{log n}) two-dimensional circuits. This is the first such result for two dimensional circuits of super-constant depth. Our results can be considered as an evidence that fooling the linear XEB test might be easier than achieving a full simulation of the quantum circuit.

Cite as

Boaz Barak, Chi-Ning Chou, and Xun Gao. Spoofing Linear Cross-Entropy Benchmarking in Shallow Quantum Circuits. In 12th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 185, pp. 30:1-30:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)


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@InProceedings{barak_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2021.30,
  author =	{Barak, Boaz and Chou, Chi-Ning and Gao, Xun},
  title =	{{Spoofing Linear Cross-Entropy Benchmarking in Shallow Quantum Circuits}},
  booktitle =	{12th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2021)},
  pages =	{30:1--30:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-177-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{185},
  editor =	{Lee, James R.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2021.30},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-135699},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2021.30},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantum supremacy, Linear cross-entropy benchmark}
}
Document
APPROX
Tracking the l_2 Norm with Constant Update Time

Authors: Chi-Ning Chou, Zhixian Lei, and Preetum Nakkiran

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 145, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2019)


Abstract
The l_2 tracking problem is the task of obtaining a streaming algorithm that, given access to a stream of items a_1,a_2,a_3,... from a universe [n], outputs at each time t an estimate to the l_2 norm of the frequency vector f^{(t)}in R^n (where f^{(t)}_i is the number of occurrences of item i in the stream up to time t). The previous work [Braverman-Chestnut-Ivkin-Nelson-Wang-Woodruff, PODS 2017] gave a streaming algorithm with (the optimal) space using O(epsilon^{-2}log(1/delta)) words and O(epsilon^{-2}log(1/delta)) update time to obtain an epsilon-accurate estimate with probability at least 1-delta. We give the first algorithm that achieves update time of O(log 1/delta) which is independent of the accuracy parameter epsilon, together with the nearly optimal space using O(epsilon^{-2}log(1/delta)) words. Our algorithm is obtained using the Count Sketch of [Charilkar-Chen-Farach-Colton, ICALP 2002].

Cite as

Chi-Ning Chou, Zhixian Lei, and Preetum Nakkiran. Tracking the l_2 Norm with Constant Update Time. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 145, pp. 2:1-2:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)


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@InProceedings{chou_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2019.2,
  author =	{Chou, Chi-Ning and Lei, Zhixian and Nakkiran, Preetum},
  title =	{{Tracking the l\underline2 Norm with Constant Update Time}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2019)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-125-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{145},
  editor =	{Achlioptas, Dimitris and V\'{e}gh, L\'{a}szl\'{o} A.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2019.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-112175},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2019.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Streaming algorithms, Sketching algorithms, Tracking, CountSketch}
}
Document
On the Algorithmic Power of Spiking Neural Networks

Authors: Chi-Ning Chou, Kai-Min Chung, and Chi-Jen Lu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 124, 10th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2019)


Abstract
Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) are mathematical models in neuroscience to describe the dynamics among a set of neurons that interact with each other by firing instantaneous signals, a.k.a., spikes. Interestingly, a recent advance in neuroscience [Barrett-Denève-Machens, NIPS 2013] showed that the neurons' firing rate, i.e., the average number of spikes fired per unit of time, can be characterized by the optimal solution of a quadratic program defined by the parameters of the dynamics. This indicated that SNN potentially has the computational power to solve non-trivial quadratic programs. However, the results were justified empirically without rigorous analysis. We put this into the context of natural algorithms and aim to investigate the algorithmic power of SNN. Especially, we emphasize on giving rigorous asymptotic analysis on the performance of SNN in solving optimization problems. To enforce a theoretical study, we first identify a simplified SNN model that is tractable for analysis. Next, we confirm the empirical observation in the work of Barrett et al. by giving an upper bound on the convergence rate of SNN in solving the quadratic program. Further, we observe that in the case where there are infinitely many optimal solutions, SNN tends to converge to the one with smaller l_1 norm. We give an affirmative answer to our finding by showing that SNN can solve the l_1 minimization problem under some regular conditions. Our main technical insight is a dual view of the SNN dynamics, under which SNN can be viewed as a new natural primal-dual algorithm for the l_1 minimization problem. We believe that the dual view is of independent interest and may potentially find interesting interpretation in neuroscience.

Cite as

Chi-Ning Chou, Kai-Min Chung, and Chi-Jen Lu. On the Algorithmic Power of Spiking Neural Networks. In 10th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 124, pp. 26:1-26:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)


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@InProceedings{chou_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2019.26,
  author =	{Chou, Chi-Ning and Chung, Kai-Min and Lu, Chi-Jen},
  title =	{{On the Algorithmic Power of Spiking Neural Networks}},
  booktitle =	{10th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2019)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-095-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{124},
  editor =	{Blum, Avrim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2019.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-101191},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2019.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: Spiking Neural Networks, Natural Algorithms, l\underline1 Minimization}
}
Document
Hardness vs Randomness for Bounded Depth Arithmetic Circuits

Authors: Chi-Ning Chou, Mrinal Kumar, and Noam Solomon

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 102, 33rd Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2018)


Abstract
In this paper, we study the question of hardness-randomness tradeoffs for bounded depth arithmetic circuits. We show that if there is a family of explicit polynomials {f_n}, where f_n is of degree O(log^2n/log^2 log n) in n variables such that f_n cannot be computed by a depth Delta arithmetic circuits of size poly(n), then there is a deterministic sub-exponential time algorithm for polynomial identity testing of arithmetic circuits of depth Delta-5. This is incomparable to a beautiful result of Dvir et al.[SICOMP, 2009], where they showed that super-polynomial lower bounds for depth Delta circuits for any explicit family of polynomials (of potentially high degree) implies sub-exponential time deterministic PIT for depth Delta-5 circuits of bounded individual degree. Thus, we remove the "bounded individual degree" condition in the work of Dvir et al. at the cost of strengthening the hardness assumption to hold for polynomials of low degree. The key technical ingredient of our proof is the following property of roots of polynomials computable by a bounded depth arithmetic circuit : if f(x_1, x_2, ..., x_n) and P(x_1, x_2, ..., x_n, y) are polynomials of degree d and r respectively, such that P can be computed by a circuit of size s and depth Delta and P(x_1, x_2, ..., x_n, f) equiv 0, then, f can be computed by a circuit of size poly(n, s, r, d^{O(sqrt{d})}) and depth Delta + 3. In comparison, Dvir et al. showed that f can be computed by a circuit of depth Delta + 3 and size poly(n, s, r, d^{t}), where t is the degree of P in y. Thus, the size upper bound in the work of Dvir et al. is non-trivial when t is small but d could be large, whereas our size upper bound is non-trivial when d is small, but t could be large.

Cite as

Chi-Ning Chou, Mrinal Kumar, and Noam Solomon. Hardness vs Randomness for Bounded Depth Arithmetic Circuits. In 33rd Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 102, pp. 13:1-13:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018)


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@InProceedings{chou_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2018.13,
  author =	{Chou, Chi-Ning and Kumar, Mrinal and Solomon, Noam},
  title =	{{Hardness vs Randomness for Bounded Depth Arithmetic Circuits}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2018)},
  pages =	{13:1--13:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-069-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2018},
  volume =	{102},
  editor =	{Servedio, Rocco A.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2018.13},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-88765},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2018.13},
  annote =	{Keywords: Algebraic Complexity, Polynomial Factorization Circuit Lower Bounds, Polynomial Identity Testing}
}
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