Related papers: Narrow Proofs May Be Maximally Long

We extend the proximity technique of Solymosi and Zahl [J. Combin. Theory, Ser. A (2024)] to the setting of trivariate polynomials. In particular, we prove the following result: Let $f(x,y,z)=(x-y)^2+(\varphi(x)-z)^2$, where $\varphi(x)\in…

We prove a structure theorem for multiplicative functions which states that an arbitrary bounded multiplicative function can be decomposed into two terms, one that is approximately periodic and another that has small Gowers uniformity norm…

We prove an effective version of the inverse theorem for the Gowers $U^3$-norm for functions supported on high-rank quadratic level sets in finite vector spaces. For configurations controlled by the $U^3$-norm (complexity-two…

Given a random $n \times n$ symmetric matrix $\boldsymbol W$ drawn from the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE), we consider the problem of certifying an upper bound on the maximum value of the quadratic form $\boldsymbol x^\top \boldsymbol…

We give improved hitting sets for two special cases of Read-once Oblivious Arithmetic Branching Programs (ROABP). First is the case of an ROABP with known order of the variables. The best previously known hitting set for this case had size…

An unsatisfiable formula is called minimal if it becomes satisfiable whenever any of its clauses are removed. We construct minimal unsatisfiable $k$-SAT formulas with $\Omega(n^k)$ clauses for $k \geq 3$, thereby negatively answering a…

We present an algorithm for strongly refuting smoothed instances of all Boolean CSPs. The smoothed model is a hybrid between worst and average-case input models, where the input is an arbitrary instance of the CSP with only the negation…

We prove that relational structures admitting specific polymorphisms (namely, canonical pseudo-WNU operations of all arities $n \geq 3$) have low relational width. This implies a collapse of the bounded width hierarchy for numerous classes…

We prove that for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$ and $\delta>0$ there exists a word $w_n \in F_2$ of length $n^{2/3} \log(n)^{3+\delta}$ which is a law for every finite group of order at most $n$. This improves upon the main result of [A. Thom,…

For each $n$, let $\text{RD}(n)$ denote the minimum $d$ for which there exists a formula for the general polynomial of degree $n$ in algebraic functions of at most $d$ variables. In 1945, Segre called for a better understanding of the large…

We show conditional lower bounds for well-studied #P-hard problems: (a) The number of satisfying assignments of a 2-CNF formula with n variables cannot be counted in time exp(o(n)), and the same is true for computing the number of all…

A \emph{square} is a word of the form $uu$, where $u$ is a nonempty finite word. Given a finite word $w$ of length $n$, let $[w]$ denote the corresponding \emph{circular word}, i.e., the set of all cyclic rotations of $w$. We study the…

We study the time complexity of the weighted first-order model counting (WFOMC) over the logical language with two variables and counting quantifiers. The problem is known to be solvable in time polynomial in the domain size. However, the…

We propose a generic framework for establishing the decidability of a wide range of logical entailment problems (briefly called querying), based on the existence of countermodels that are structurally simple, gauged by certain types of…

Proving complexity lower bounds remains a challenging task: we only know how to prove conditional uniform lower bounds and nonuniform lower bounds in restricted circuit models. Williams (STOC 2010) showed how to derive nonuniform lower…

We prove a \emph{query complexity} lower bound on rank-one principal component analysis (PCA). We consider an oracle model where, given a symmetric matrix $M \in \mathbb{R}^{d \times d}$, an algorithm is allowed to make $T$ \emph{exact}…

Let $K$ be a number field, and let $W$ be a subspace of $K^N$, $N \geq 1$. Let $V_1,...,V_M$ be subspaces of $K^N$ of dimension less than dimension of $W$. We prove the existence of a point of small height in $W \setminus \bigcup_{i=1}^M…

We consider the task of proving integer infeasibility of a bounded convex $K$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$ using a general branching proof system. In a general branching proof, one constructs a branching tree by adding an integer disjunction…

Using the theory of resolving classes, we show that if $X$ is a CW complex of finite type such that $\map_*(X, S^{2n+1})\sim *$ for all sufficiently large $n$, then $\map_*(X, K) \sim *$ for every simply-connected finite-dimensional CW…

This paper introduces a generic framework that provides sufficient conditions for guaranteeing polynomial-time decidability of fixed-negation fragments of first-order theories that adhere to certain fixed-parameter tractability…