Search Results

Documents authored by Talebanfard, Navid


Document
Local Enumeration and Majority Lower Bounds

Authors: Mohit Gurumukhani, Ramamohan Paturi, Pavel Pudlák, Michael Saks, and Navid Talebanfard

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 300, 39th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2024)


Abstract
Depth-3 circuit lower bounds and k-SAT algorithms are intimately related; the state-of-the-art Σ^k_3-circuit lower bound (Or-And-Or circuits with bottom fan-in at most k) and the k-SAT algorithm of Paturi, Pudlák, Saks, and Zane (J. ACM'05) are based on the same combinatorial theorem regarding k-CNFs. In this paper we define a problem which reveals new interactions between the two, and suggests a concrete approach to significantly stronger circuit lower bounds and improved k-SAT algorithms. For a natural number k and a parameter t, we consider the Enum(k, t) problem defined as follows: given an n-variable k-CNF and an initial assignment α, output all satisfying assignments at Hamming distance t(n) of α, assuming that there are no satisfying assignments of Hamming distance less than t(n) of α. We observe that an upper bound b(n, k, t) on the complexity of Enum(k, t) simultaneously implies depth-3 circuit lower bounds and k-SAT algorithms: - Depth-3 circuits: Any Σ^k_3 circuit computing the Majority function has size at least binom(n,n/2)/b(n, k, n/2). - k-SAT: There exists an algorithm solving k-SAT in time O(∑_{t=1}^{n/2}b(n, k, t)). A simple construction shows that b(n, k, n/2) ≥ 2^{(1 - O(log(k)/k))n}. Thus, matching upper bounds for b(n, k, n/2) would imply a Σ^k_3-circuit lower bound of 2^Ω(log(k)n/k) and a k-SAT upper bound of 2^{(1 - Ω(log(k)/k))n}. The former yields an unrestricted depth-3 lower bound of 2^ω(√n) solving a long standing open problem, and the latter breaks the Super Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis. In this paper, we propose a randomized algorithm for Enum(k, t) and introduce new ideas to analyze it. We demonstrate the power of our ideas by considering the first non-trivial instance of the problem, i.e., Enum(3, n/2). We show that the expected running time of our algorithm is 1.598ⁿ, substantially improving on the trivial bound of 3^{n/2} ≃ 1.732ⁿ. This already improves Σ^3_3 lower bounds for Majority function to 1.251ⁿ. The previous bound was 1.154ⁿ which follows from the work of Håstad, Jukna, and Pudlák (Comput. Complex.'95). By restricting ourselves to monotone CNFs, Enum(k, t) immediately becomes a hypergraph Turán problem. Therefore our techniques might be of independent interest in extremal combinatorics.

Cite as

Mohit Gurumukhani, Ramamohan Paturi, Pavel Pudlák, Michael Saks, and Navid Talebanfard. Local Enumeration and Majority Lower Bounds. In 39th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 300, pp. 17:1-17:25, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{gurumukhani_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2024.17,
  author =	{Gurumukhani, Mohit and Paturi, Ramamohan and Pudl\'{a}k, Pavel and Saks, Michael and Talebanfard, Navid},
  title =	{{Local Enumeration and Majority Lower Bounds}},
  booktitle =	{39th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2024)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:25},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-331-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{300},
  editor =	{Santhanam, Rahul},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2024.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-204136},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2024.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Depth 3 circuits, k-CNF satisfiability, Circuit lower bounds, Majority function}
}
Document
Linear Branching Programs and Directional Affine Extractors

Authors: Svyatoslav Gryaznov, Pavel Pudlák, and Navid Talebanfard

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


Abstract
A natural model of read-once linear branching programs is a branching program where queries are 𝔽₂ linear forms, and along each path, the queries are linearly independent. We consider two restrictions of this model, which we call weakly and strongly read-once, both generalizing standard read-once branching programs and parity decision trees. Our main results are as follows. - Average-case complexity. We define a pseudo-random class of functions which we call directional affine extractors, and show that these functions are hard on average for the strongly read-once model. We then present an explicit construction of such function with good parameters. This strengthens the result of Cohen and Shinkar (ITCS'16) who gave such average-case hardness for parity decision trees. Directional affine extractors are stronger than the more familiar class of affine extractors. Given the significance of these functions, we expect that our new class of functions might be of independent interest. - Proof complexity. We also consider the proof system Res[⊕], which is an extension of resolution with linear queries, and define the regular variant of Res[⊕]. A refutation of a CNF in this proof system naturally defines a linear branching program solving the corresponding search problem. If a refutation is regular, we prove that the resulting program is read-once. Conversely, we show that a weakly read-once linear BP solving the search problem can be converted to a regular Res[⊕] refutation with constant blow up, where the regularity condition comes from the definition of weakly read-once BPs, thus obtaining the equivalence between these proof systems.

Cite as

Svyatoslav Gryaznov, Pavel Pudlák, and Navid Talebanfard. Linear Branching Programs and Directional Affine Extractors. In 37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 234, pp. 4:1-4:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{gryaznov_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2022.4,
  author =	{Gryaznov, Svyatoslav and Pudl\'{a}k, Pavel and Talebanfard, Navid},
  title =	{{Linear Branching Programs and Directional Affine Extractors}},
  booktitle =	{37th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2022)},
  pages =	{4:1--4:16},
  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.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2022.4},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-165664},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2022.4},
  annote =	{Keywords: Boolean Functions, Average-Case Lower Bounds, AC0\lbrack2\rbrack, Affine Dispersers, Affine Extractors}
}
Document
A Variant of the VC-Dimension with Applications to Depth-3 Circuits

Authors: Peter Frankl, Svyatoslav Gryaznov, and Navid Talebanfard

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


Abstract
We introduce the following variant of the VC-dimension. Given S ⊆ {0,1}ⁿ and a positive integer d, we define 𝕌_d(S) to be the size of the largest subset I ⊆ [n] such that the projection of S on every subset of I of size d is the d-dimensional cube. We show that determining the largest cardinality of a set with a given 𝕌_d dimension is equivalent to a Turán-type problem related to the total number of cliques in a d-uniform hypergraph. This allows us to beat the Sauer-Shelah lemma for this notion of dimension. We use this to obtain several results on Σ₃^k-circuits, i.e., depth-3 circuits with top gate OR and bottom fan-in at most k: - Tight relationship between the number of satisfying assignments of a 2-CNF and the dimension of the largest projection accepted by it, thus improving Paturi, Saks, and Zane (Comput. Complex. '00). - Improved Σ₃³-circuit lower bounds for affine dispersers for sublinear dimension. Moreover, we pose a purely hypergraph-theoretic conjecture under which we get further improvement. - We make progress towards settling the Σ₃² complexity of the inner product function and all degree-2 polynomials over 𝔽₂ in general. The question of determining the Σ₃³ complexity of IP was recently posed by Golovnev, Kulikov, and Williams (ITCS'21).

Cite as

Peter Frankl, Svyatoslav Gryaznov, and Navid Talebanfard. A Variant of the VC-Dimension with Applications to Depth-3 Circuits. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 72:1-72:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{frankl_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.72,
  author =	{Frankl, Peter and Gryaznov, Svyatoslav and Talebanfard, Navid},
  title =	{{A Variant of the VC-Dimension with Applications to Depth-3 Circuits}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{72:1--72:19},
  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.2022.72},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156680},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.72},
  annote =	{Keywords: VC-dimension, Hypergraph, Clique, Affine Disperser, Circuit}
}
Document
Super Strong ETH Is True for PPSZ with Small Resolution Width

Authors: Dominik Scheder and Navid Talebanfard

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 169, 35th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2020)


Abstract
We construct k-CNFs with m variables on which the strong version of PPSZ k-SAT algorithm, which uses resolution of width bounded by O(√{log log m}), has success probability at most 2^{-(1-(1 + ε)2/k)m} for every ε > 0. Previously such a bound was known only for the weak PPSZ algorithm which exhaustively searches through small subformulas of the CNF to see if any of them forces the value of a given variable, and for strong PPSZ the best known previous upper bound was 2^{-(1-O(log(k)/k))m} (Pudlák et al., ICALP 2017).

Cite as

Dominik Scheder and Navid Talebanfard. Super Strong ETH Is True for PPSZ with Small Resolution Width. In 35th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 169, pp. 3:1-3:12, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{scheder_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2020.3,
  author =	{Scheder, Dominik and Talebanfard, Navid},
  title =	{{Super Strong ETH Is True for PPSZ with Small Resolution Width}},
  booktitle =	{35th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2020)},
  pages =	{3:1--3:12},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-156-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{169},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2020.3},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-125552},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2020.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: k-SAT, PPSZ, Resolution}
}
Document
Tighter Hard Instances for PPSZ

Authors: Pavel Pudlák, Dominik Scheder, and Navid Talebanfard

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 80, 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)


Abstract
We construct uniquely satisfiable k-CNF formulas that are hard for the PPSZ algorithm, the currently best known algorithm solving k-SAT. This algorithm tries to generate a satisfying assignment by picking a random variable at a time and attempting to derive its value using some inference heuristic and otherwise assigning a random value. The "weak PPSZ" checks all subformulas of a given size to derive a value and the "strong PPSZ" runs resolution with width bounded by some given function. Firstly, we construct graph-instances on which "weak PPSZ" has savings of at most (2 + epsilon)/k; the saving of an algorithm on an input formula with n variables is the largest gamma such that the algorithm succeeds (i.e. finds a satisfying assignment) with probability at least 2^{- (1 - gamma) n}. Since PPSZ (both weak and strong) is known to have savings of at least (pi^2 + o(1))/6k, this is optimal up to the constant factor. In particular, for k=3, our upper bound is 2^{0.333... n}, which is fairly close to the lower bound 2^{0.386... n} of Hertli [SIAM J. Comput.'14]. We also construct instances based on linear systems over F_2 for which strong PPSZ has savings of at most O(log(k)/k). This is only a log(k) factor away from the optimal bound. Our constructions improve previous savings upper bound of O((log^2(k))/k) due to Chen et al. [SODA'13].

Cite as

Pavel Pudlák, Dominik Scheder, and Navid Talebanfard. Tighter Hard Instances for PPSZ. In 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 80, pp. 85:1-85:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{pudlak_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.85,
  author =	{Pudl\'{a}k, Pavel and Scheder, Dominik and Talebanfard, Navid},
  title =	{{Tighter Hard Instances for PPSZ}},
  booktitle =	{44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)},
  pages =	{85:1--85:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-041-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{80},
  editor =	{Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Indyk, Piotr and Kuhn, Fabian and Muscholl, Anca},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.85},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-74144},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.85},
  annote =	{Keywords: k-SAT, Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis, PPSZ, Resolution}
}
Document
Strong ETH and Resolution via Games and the Multiplicity of Strategies

Authors: Ilario Bonacina and Navid Talebanfard

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 43, 10th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2015)


Abstract
We consider a restriction of the Resolution proof system in which at most a fixed number of variables can be resolved more than once along each refutation path. This system lies between regular Resolution, in which no variable can be resolved more than once along any path, and general Resolution where there is no restriction on the number of such variables. We show that when the number of re-resolved variables is not too large, this proof system is consistent with the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH). More precisely for large n and k we show that there are unsatisfiable k-CNF formulas which require Resolution refutations of size 2^{(1 - epsilon_k)n}, where n is the number of variables and epsilon_k=~O(k^{-1/5}), whenever in each refutation path we only allow at most ~O(k^{-1/5})n variables to be resolved multiple times. However, these re-resolved variables along different paths do not need to be the same. Prior to this work, the strongest proof system shown to be consistent with SETH was regular Resolution [Beck and Impagliazzo, STOC'13]. This work strengthens that result and gives a different and conceptually simpler game-theoretic proof for the case of regular Resolution.

Cite as

Ilario Bonacina and Navid Talebanfard. Strong ETH and Resolution via Games and the Multiplicity of Strategies. In 10th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2015). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 43, pp. 248-257, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2015)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{bonacina_et_al:LIPIcs.IPEC.2015.248,
  author =	{Bonacina, Ilario and Talebanfard, Navid},
  title =	{{Strong ETH and Resolution via Games and the Multiplicity of Strategies}},
  booktitle =	{10th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2015)},
  pages =	{248--257},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-939897-92-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2015},
  volume =	{43},
  editor =	{Husfeldt, Thore and Kanj, Iyad},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.IPEC.2015.248},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-55876},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.IPEC.2015.248},
  annote =	{Keywords: Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis, resolution, proof systems}
}
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