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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2026.26

A Simple Sub-Polynomial Degree Coboundary Expander

Authors: Max Hopkins and Arka Ray

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 383, 41st Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2026)

Abstract

High dimensional expanders simultaneously satisfying spectral and combinatorial (coboundary) expansion have recently played a major role in breakthroughs in PCP and coding theory, but the only known construction of such complexes is extremely involved, requiring deep algebraic number theory. In this work, we give an extremely simple combinatorial construction of a sub-polynomial degree complex based on projections of the flags complex (subspace chains) that is (i) a local spectral expander, (ii) a coboundary expander, and (iii) a swap coboundary expander. As a corollary, we also give the first near-linear size combinatorial hypergraphs with good agreement tests in the `1%' regime, and a simple PCP construction with near-linear size.

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Max Hopkins and Arka Ray. A Simple Sub-Polynomial Degree Coboundary Expander. In 41st Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 383, pp. 26:1-26:41, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{hopkins_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2026.26,
  author =	{Hopkins, Max and Ray, Arka},
  title =	{{A Simple Sub-Polynomial Degree Coboundary Expander}},
  booktitle =	{41st Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2026)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:41},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-437-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{383},
  editor =	{Moshkovitz, Dana},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2026.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-270685},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2026.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: high dimensional expansders, agreement testing, probabilistically checkable proofs}
}

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RANDOM

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.16

Eigenstripping, Spectral Decay, and Edge-Expansion on Posets

Authors: Jason Gaitonde, Max Hopkins, Tali Kaufman, Shachar Lovett, and Ruizhe Zhang

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

Abstract

Fast mixing of random walks on hypergraphs (simplicial complexes) has recently led to myriad breakthroughs throughout theoretical computer science. Many important applications, however, (e.g. to LTCs, 2-2 games) rely on a more general class of underlying structures called posets, and crucially take advantage of non-simplicial structure. These works make it clear that the global expansion properties of posets depend strongly on their underlying architecture (e.g. simplicial, cubical, linear algebraic), but the overall phenomenon remains poorly understood. In this work, we quantify the advantage of different poset architectures in both a spectral and combinatorial sense, highlighting how regularity controls the spectral decay and edge-expansion of corresponding random walks. We show that the spectra of walks on expanding posets (Dikstein, Dinur, Filmus, Harsha APPROX-RANDOM 2018) concentrate in strips around a small number of approximate eigenvalues controlled by the regularity of the underlying poset. This gives a simple condition to identify poset architectures (e.g. the Grassmann) that exhibit strong (even exponential) decay of eigenvalues, versus architectures like hypergraphs whose eigenvalues decay linearly - a crucial distinction in applications to hardness of approximation and agreement testing such as the recent proof of the 2-2 Games Conjecture (Khot, Minzer, Safra FOCS 2018). We show these results lead to a tight characterization of edge-expansion on expanding posets in the 𝓁₂-regime (generalizing recent work of Bafna, Hopkins, Kaufman, and Lovett (SODA 2022)), and pay special attention to the case of the Grassmann where we show our results are tight for a natural set of sparsifications of the Grassmann graphs. We note for clarity that our results do not recover the characterization of expansion used in the proof of the 2-2 Games Conjecture which relies on 𝓁_∞ rather than 𝓁₂-structure.

Cite as

Jason Gaitonde, Max Hopkins, Tali Kaufman, Shachar Lovett, and Ruizhe Zhang. Eigenstripping, Spectral Decay, and Edge-Expansion on Posets. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 245, pp. 16:1-16:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{gaitonde_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.16,
  author =	{Gaitonde, Jason and Hopkins, Max and Kaufman, Tali and Lovett, Shachar and Zhang, Ruizhe},
  title =	{{Eigenstripping, Spectral Decay, and Edge-Expansion on Posets}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022)},
  pages =	{16:1--16:24},
  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.2022.16},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-171381},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.16},
  annote =	{Keywords: High-dimensional expanders, posets, eposets}
}

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Documents authored by Hopkins, Max

A Simple Sub-Polynomial Degree Coboundary Expander

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Eigenstripping, Spectral Decay, and Edge-Expansion on Posets

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