English

Multivariate Polynomial Integration and Derivative Are Polynomial Time Inapproximable unless P=NP

Computational Complexity 2010-12-13 v1

Abstract

We investigate the complexity of integration and derivative for multivariate polynomials in the standard computation model. The integration is in the unit cube [0,1]d[0,1]^d for a multivariate polynomial, which has format f(x1,,xd)=p1(x1,,xd)p2(x1,,xd)pk(x1,,xd)f(x_1,\cdots, x_d)=p_1(x_1,\cdots, x_d)p_2(x_1,\cdots, x_d)\cdots p_k(x_1,\cdots, x_d), where each pi(x1,,xd)=j=1dqj(xj)p_i(x_1,\cdots, x_d)=\sum_{j=1}^d q_j(x_j) with all single variable polynomials qj(xj)q_j(x_j) of degree at most two and constant coefficients. We show that there is no any factor polynomial time approximation for the integration [0,1]df(x1,,xd)dx1dxd\int_{[0,1]^d}f(x_1,\cdots,x_d)d_{x_1}\cdots d_{x_d} unless P=NPP=NP. For the complexity of multivariate derivative, we consider the functions with the format f(x1,,xd)=p1(x1,,xd)p2(x1,,xd)pk(x1,,xd),f(x_1,\cdots, x_d)=p_1(x_1,\cdots, x_d)p_2(x_1,\cdots, x_d)\cdots p_k(x_1,\cdots, x_d), where each pi(x1,,xd)p_i(x_1,\cdots, x_d) is of degree at most 22 and 0,10,1 coefficients. We also show that unless P=NPP=NP, there is no any factor polynomial time approximation to its derivative f(d)(x1,,xd)x1xd{\partial f^{(d)}(x_1,\cdots, x_d)\over \partial x_1\cdots \partial x_d} at the origin point (x1,,xd)=(0,,0)(x_1,\cdots, x_d)=(0,\cdots,0). Our results show that the derivative may not be easier than the integration in high dimension. We also give some tractable cases of high dimension integration and derivative.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1012.2377,
  title  = {Multivariate Polynomial Integration and Derivative Are Polynomial Time Inapproximable unless P=NP},
  author = {Bin Fu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1012.2377},
  year   = {2010}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:56:51.589Z