Related papers: Strongly Refuting Random CSPs Below the Spectral T…

We give an efficient algorithm to strongly refute \emph{semi-random} instances of all Boolean constraint satisfaction problems. The number of constraints required by our algorithm matches (up to polylogarithmic factors) the best-known…

Let $P:\{0,1\}^k \to \{0,1\}$ be a nontrivial $k$-ary predicate. Consider a random instance of the constraint satisfaction problem $\mathrm{CSP}(P)$ on $n$ variables with $\Delta n$ constraints, each being $P$ applied to $k$ randomly chosen…

Under what condition is a random constraint satisfaction problem hard to refute by the sum-of-squares (SoS) algorithm? A sufficient condition is t-wise uniformity, that is, each constraint has a t-wise uniform distribution of satisfying…

Let $P$ be a $k$-ary predicate over a finite alphabet. Consider a random CSP$(P)$ instance $I$ over $n$ variables with $m$ constraints. When $m \gg n$ the instance $I$ will be unsatisfiable with high probability, and we want to find a…

Random instances of Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSP's) appear to be hard for all known algorithms, when the number of constraints per variable lies in a certain interval. Contributing to the general understanding of the structure of…

We present an efficient algorithm to solve semirandom planted instances of any Boolean constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). The semirandom model is a hybrid between worst-case and average-case input models, where the input is generated by…

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…

For a $k$-ary predicate $P$, a random instance of CSP$(P)$ with $n$ variables and $m$ constraints is unsatisfiable with high probability when $m \gg n$. The natural algorithmic task in this regime is \emph{refutation}: finding a proof that…

Strong refutation of random CSPs is a fundamental question in theoretical computer science that has received particular attention due to the long-standing gap between the information-theoretic limit and the computational limit. This gap is…

Unlike its cousin 3SAT, the NAE-3SAT (not-all-equal-3SAT) problem has the property that spectral/SDP algorithms can efficiently refute random instances when the constraint density is a large constant (with high probability). But do these…

An active topic in the study of random constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) is the geometry of the space of satisfying or almost satisfying assignments as the function of the density, for which a precise landscape of predictions has been…

We determine the exact threshold of satisfiability for random instances of a particular NP-complete constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). This is the first random CSP model for which we have determined a precise linear satisfiability…

Consider a system of $m$ polynomial equations $\{p_i(x) = b_i\}_{i \leq m}$ of degree $D\geq 2$ in $n$-dimensional variable $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$ such that each coefficient of every $p_i$ and $b_i$s are chosen at random and independently…

We establish the satisfiability threshold for random $k$-SAT for all $k\ge k_0$, with $k_0$ an absolute constant. That is, there exists a limiting density $\alpha_*(k)$ such that a random $k$-SAT formula of clause density $\alpha$ is with…

Random instances of constraint satisfaction problems such as k-SAT provide challenging benchmarks. If there are m constraints over n variables there is typically a large range of densities r=m/n where solutions are known to exist with…

Random constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) such as random $3$-SAT are conjectured to be computationally intractable. The average case hardness of random $3$-SAT and other CSPs has broad and far-reaching implications on problems in…

The basic random $k$-SAT problem is: Given a set of $n$ Boolean variables, and $m$ clauses of size $k$ picked uniformly at random from the set of all such clauses on our variables, is the conjunction of these clauses satisfiable? Here we…

A recent work (Korten, Pitassi, and Impagliazzo, FOCS 2025) established an insightful connection between static data structure lower bounds, range avoidance of $\text{NC}^0$ circuits, and the refutation of pseudorandom CSP instances,…

We define a novel notion of ``non-backtracking'' matrix associated to any symmetric matrix, and we prove a ``Ihara-Bass'' type formula for it. We use this theory to prove new results on polynomial-time strong refutations of random…

We present efficient counting and sampling algorithms for random $k$-SAT when the clause density satisfies $\alpha \le \frac{2^k}{\mathrm{poly}(k)}.$ In particular, the exponential term $2^k$ matches the satisfiability threshold…