English

Supercritical Tradeoffs for Monotone Circuits

Computational Complexity 2024-11-22 v1

Abstract

We exhibit a monotone function computable by a monotone circuit of quasipolynomial size such that any monotone circuit of polynomial depth requires exponential size. This is the first size-depth tradeoff result for monotone circuits in the so-called supercritical regime. Our proof is based on an analogous result in proof complexity: We introduce a new family of unsatisfiable 3-CNF formulas (called bracket formulas) that admit resolution refutations of quasipolynomial size while any refutation of polynomial depth requires exponential size.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.14268,
  title  = {Supercritical Tradeoffs for Monotone Circuits},
  author = {Mika Göös and Gilbert Maystre and Kilian Risse and Dmitry Sokolov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.14268},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:07:59.187Z