Related papers: On the Probabilistic Degrees of Symmetric Boolean …
Nisan and Szegedy (CC 1994) showed that any Boolean function $f:\{0,1\}^n\rightarrow \{0,1\}$ that depends on all its input variables, when represented as a real-valued multivariate polynomial $P(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$, has degree at least $\log…
We study the probabilistic degree over reals of the OR function on $n$ variables. For an error parameter $\epsilon$ in (0,1/3), the $\epsilon$-error probabilistic degree of any Boolean function $f$ over reals is the smallest non-negative…
The degrees of polynomials representing or approximating Boolean functions are a prominent tool in various branches of complexity theory. Sherstov recently characterized the minimal degree deg_{\eps}(f) among all polynomials (over the…
Polynomial representations of Boolean functions over various rings such as $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Z}_m$ have been studied since Minsky and Papert (1969). From then on, they have been employed in a large variety of fields including…
We show how to compute any symmetric Boolean function on $n$ variables over any field (as well as the integers) with a probabilistic polynomial of degree $O(\sqrt{n \log(1/\epsilon)})$ and error at most $\epsilon$. The degree dependence on…
We study whether a uniformly random Boolean function $f : \{-1,1\}^p \to \{-1,1\}$ is determined by its Walsh--Fourier coefficients of degree at most $d$. We show that the threshold lies at $p/2$ up to an $O(\sqrt{p \log p})$ window: if \[…
The approximate degree of a Boolean function $f \colon \{-1, 1\}^n \rightarrow \{-1, 1\}$ is the least degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ pointwise to error at most $1/3$. We introduce a generic method for increasing the…
The approximate degree of a Boolean function $f(x_{1},x_{2},\ldots,x_{n})$ is the minimum degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ pointwise within $1/3$. Upper bounds on approximate degree have a variety of applications in…
A simple way to generate a Boolean function is to take the sign of a real polynomial in $n$ variables. Such Boolean functions are called polynomial threshold functions. How many low-degree polynomial threshold functions are there? The…
The algebraic degree is an important parameter of Boolean functions used in cryptography. When a function in a large number of variables is not given explicitly in algebraic normal form, it might not be feasible to compute its degree.…
The $\epsilon$-approximate degree of a Boolean function $f: \{-1, 1\}^n \to \{-1, 1\}$ is the minimum degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ to within $\epsilon$ in the $\ell_\infty$ norm. We prove several lower bounds on this…
The approximate non-deterministic degree of a Boolean function $f$, denoted $\mathsf{ndeg}_\epsilon(f)$ (written $\mathsf{N}_\epsilon(f)$ for brevity), is the minimum degree of a real polynomial $p$ such that $0 \le |p(x)| \le \epsilon$…
The sensitivity of a Boolean function f is the maximum over all inputs x, of the number of sensitive coordinates of x. The well-known sensitivity conjecture of Nisan (see also Nisan and Szegedy) states that every sensitivity-s Boolean…
We study a natural complexity measure of Boolean functions known as the rational degree. Denoted $\textrm{rdeg}(f)$, it is the minimal degree of a rational function that is equal to $f$ on the Boolean hypercube. For total functions $f$, it…
We give a "regularity lemma" for degree-d polynomial threshold functions (PTFs) over the Boolean cube {-1,1}^n. This result shows that every degree-d PTF can be decomposed into a constant number of subfunctions such that almost all of the…
Let $\mathcal{F}_{n}^*$ be the set of Boolean functions depending on all $n$ variables. We prove that for any $f\in \mathcal{F}_{n}^*$, $f|_{x_i=0}$ or $f|_{x_i=1}$ depends on the remaining $n-1$ variables, for some variable $x_i$. This…
The $\epsilon$-approximate degree $deg_\epsilon(f)$ of a Boolean function $f$ is the least degree of a real-valued polynomial that approximates $f$ pointwise to error $\epsilon$. The approximate degree of $f$ is at least $k$ iff there…
For a Boolean function $\Phi\colon\{0,1\}^d\to\{0,1\}$ and an assignment to its variables $\mathbf{x}=(x_1, x_2, \dots, x_d)$ we consider the problem of finding the subsets of the variables that are sufficient to determine the function…
The spectral norm of a Boolean function $f:\{0,1\}^n \to \{-1,1\}$ is the sum of the absolute values of its Fourier coefficients. This quantity provides useful upper and lower bounds on the complexity of a function in areas such as learning…
The approximate degree of a Boolean function is the minimum degree of real polynomial that approximates it pointwise. For any Boolean function, its approximate degree serves as a lower bound on its quantum query complexity, and generically…