Related papers: Lower Bounding the AND-OR Tree via Symmetrization

Given a graph $G$ and a vertex set $X$, the annotated treewidth tw$(G,X)$ of $X$ in $G$ is the maximum treewidth of an $X$-rooted minor of $G$, i.e., a minor $H$ where the model of each vertex of $H$ contains some vertex of $X$. That way,…

We show that a large fraction of the data-structure lower bounds known today in fact follow by reduction from the communication complexity of lopsided (asymmetric) set disjointness. This includes lower bounds for: * high-dimensional…

Using the Moore--Penrose pseudoinverse, this work generalizes the gradient approximation technique called centred simplex gradient to allow sample sets containing any number of points. This approximation technique is called the…

The $CONGEST$ model for distributed network computing is well suited for analyzing the impact of limiting the throughput of a network on its capacity to solve tasks efficiently. For many "global" problems there exists a lower bound of…

The Polyline Bundle Simplification (PBS) problem is a generalization of the classical polyline simplification problem. Given a set of polylines, which may share line segments and points, PBS asks for the smallest consistent simplification…

We consider the problem of minimizing a continuous function f over a compact set K. We analyze a hierarchy of upper bounds proposed by Lasserre in [SIAM J. Optim. 21(3) (2011), pp. 864--885], obtained by searching for an optimal probability…

The claw problem is central in the fields of theoretical computer science as well as cryptography. The optimal quantum query complexity of the problem is known to be $\Omega\left(\sqrt{G}+(FG)^{1/3} \right)$ for input functions $f\colon…

We study the min-max optimization problem where each function contributing to the max operation is strongly-convex and smooth with bounded gradient in the search domain. By smoothing the max operator, we show the ability to achieve an…

The threshold-$k$ metric dimension ($\mathrm{Tmd}_k$) of a graph is the minimum number of sensors -- a subset of the vertex set -- needed to uniquely identify any vertex in the graph, solely based on its distances from the sensors, when the…

We prove that Simulated Annealing with an appropriate cooling schedule computes arbitrarily tight constant-factor approximations to the minimum spanning tree problem in polynomial time. This result was conjectured by Wegener (2005). More…

We survey recent progress in the proof complexity of strong proof systems and its connection to algebraic circuit complexity, showing how the synergy between the two gives rise to new approaches to fundamental open questions, solutions to…

One of the key results in Robertson and Seymour's seminal work on graph minors is the Grid-Minor Theorem (also called the Excluded Grid Theorem). The theorem states that for every grid $H$, every graph whose treewidth is large enough…

Representations of Boolean functions by real polynomials play an important role in complexity theory. Typically, one is interested in the least degree of a polynomial p(x_1,...,x_n) that approximates or sign-represents a given Boolean…

We prove strengthened lower bounds for constant-depth set-multilinear formulas. More precisely, we show that over any field, there is an explicit polynomial $f$ in VNP defined over $n^2$ variables, and of degree $n$, such that any…

We propose and study a generalization to the well-known problem of polyline simplification. Instead of a single polyline, we are given a set of $\ell$ polylines possibly sharing some line segments and bend points. Our goal is to minimize…

Minimum dominating set is a basic local covering problem and a core task in distributed computing. Despite extensive study, in the classic LOCAL model there exist significant gaps between known algorithms and lower bounds. Chang and Li…

Quasi branch and bound is a recently introduced generalization of branch and bound, where lower bounds are replaced by a relaxed notion of quasi-lower bounds, required to be lower bounds only for sub-cubes containing a minimizer. This paper…

Diestel and M\"uller showed that the connected tree-width of a graph $G$, i.e., the minimum width of any tree-decomposition with connected parts, can be bounded in terms of the tree-width of $G$ and the largest length of a geodesic cycle in…

Sublinear time algorithms for approximating maximum matching size have long been studied. Much of the progress over the last two decades on this problem has been on the algorithmic side. For instance, an algorithm of Behnezhad [FOCS'21]…

Let $\mathrm{R}$ be a real closed field. The problem of obtaining tight bounds on the Betti numbers of semi-algebraic subsets of $\mathrm{R}^k$ in terms of the number and degrees of the defining polynomials has been an important problem in…