Related papers: Almost-natural proofs
Hardness magnification reduces major complexity separations (such as $\mathsf{\mathsf{EXP}} \nsubseteq \mathsf{NC}^1$) to proving lower bounds for some natural problem $Q$ against weak circuit models. Several recent works [OS18, MMW19,…
We study connections between Natural Proofs, derandomization, and the problem of proving "weak" circuit lower bounds such as ${\sf NEXP} \not\subset {\sf TC^0}$. Natural Proofs have three properties: they are constructive (an efficient…
For a property $P$ and a sub-property $P'$, we say that $P$ is $P'$-partially testable with $q$ queries if there exists an algorithm that distinguishes, with high probability, inputs in $P'$ from inputs $\epsilon$-far from $P$ by using $q$…
A propositional proof system $P$ has the strong feasible disjunction property iff there is a constant $c \geq 1$ such that whenever $P$ admits a size $s$ proof of $\bigvee_i \alpha_i$ with no two $\alpha_i$ sharing an atom then one of…
The framework of algebraically natural proofs was independently introduced in the works of Forbes, Shpilka and Volk (2018), and Grochow, Kumar, Saks and Saraf (2017), to study the efficacy of commonly used techniques for proving lower…
We observe that a certain kind of algebraic proof - which covers essentially all known algebraic circuit lower bounds to date - cannot be used to prove lower bounds against VP if and only if what we call succinct hitting sets exist for VP.…
We revisit known constructions of efficient learning algorithms from various notions of constructive circuit lower bounds such as distinguishers breaking pseudorandom generators or efficient witnessing algorithms which find errors of small…
In combinatorics, the probabilistic method is a very powerful tool to prove the existence of combinatorial objects with interesting and useful properties. Explicit constructions of objects with such properties are often very difficult, or…
State minimization of combinatorial filters is a fundamental problem that arises, for example, in building cheap, resource-efficient robots. But exact minimization is known to be NP-hard. This paper conducts a more nuanced analysis of this…
We say that a function is rare-case hard against a given class of algorithms (the adversary) if all algorithms in the class can compute the function only on an $o(1)$-fraction of instances of size $n$ for large enough $n$. Starting from any…
For large classes of group testing problems, we derive lower bounds for the probability that all significant items are uniquely identified using specially constructed random designs. These bounds allow us to optimize parameters of the…
If no optimal propositional proof system exists, we (and independently Pudl\'ak) prove that ruling out length $t$ proofs of any unprovable sentence is hard. This mapping from unprovable to hard-to-prove sentences powerfully translates facts…
Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph (PBR) have recently given a completely novel argument that restricts the class of possible models for quantum phenomena (arXiv:1111.3328). In these notes the assumptions used by PBR are considerably weakened, to…
The goal of property testing is to quickly distinguish between objects which satisfy a property and objects that are $\epsilon$-far from satisfying the property. There are now several general results in this area which show that natural…
This is a survey of two papers joint with A. Borisov and a paper joint with I. Spakulova. It is based on my lectures at the conference "Groups St. Andrews 2009", Bath (August 2009). We prove that almost all 1-related groups with at least 3…
Cook and Reckhow 1979 pointed out that NP is not closed under complementation iff there is no propositional proof system that admits polynomial size proofs of all tautologies. Theory of proof complexity generators aims at constructing sets…
This article precisely defines huge proofs within the system of Natural Deduction for the Minimal implicational propositional logic \mil. This is what we call an unlimited family of super-polynomial proofs. We consider huge families of…
The theory of quasirandomness has greatly expanded from its inaugural graph theoretical setting to several different combinatorial objects such as hypergraphs, tournaments, permutations, etc. However, these quasirandomness variants have…
We show the existence of rigid combinatorial objects which previously were not known to exist. Specifically, for a wide range of the underlying parameters, we show the existence of non-trivial orthogonal arrays, $t$-designs, and $t$-wise…
A strong direct product theorem states that if we want to compute $k$ independent instances of a function, using less than $k$ times the resources needed for one instance, then the overall success probability will be exponentially small in…