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Space-bounded online Kolmogorov complexity is additive

Computational Complexity 2025-07-15 v4 Information Theory math.IT

Abstract

The even online Kolmogorov complexity of a string x=x1x2xnx = x_1 x_2 \cdots x_{n} is the minimal length of a program that for all in/2i\le n/2, on input x1x3x2i1x_1x_3 \cdots x_{2i-1} outputs x2ix_{2i}. The odd complexity is defined similarly. The sum of the odd and even complexities is called the dialogue complexity. In [Bauwens, 2014] it is proven that for all nn, there exist nn-bit xx for which the dialogue complexity exceeds the Kolmogorov complexity by nlog43+O(logn)n\log \frac 4 3 + O(\log n). Let Cs(x)\mathrm C^s(x) denote the Kolmogorov complexity with space bound~ss. Here, we prove that the space-bounded dialogue complexity with bound s+6n+O(1)s + 6n + O(1) is at most Cs(x)+O(log(sn))\mathrm C^{s}(x) + O(\log (sn)), where n=xn=|x|.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.02777,
  title  = {Space-bounded online Kolmogorov complexity is additive},
  author = {Bruno Bauwens and Maria Marchenko},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.02777},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

This update is just to add acknowledgements

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:32:49.780Z