Related papers: On the Probabilistic Degree of an $n$-variate Bool…
A Boolean function of n bits is balanced if it takes the value 1 with probability 1/2. We exhibit a balanced Boolean function with a randomized evaluation procedure (with probability 0 of making a mistake) so that on uniformly random…
The degree of a polynomial representing (or approximating) a function f is a lower bound for the number of quantum queries needed to compute f. This observation has been a source of many lower bounds on quantum algorithms. It has been an…
Let the randomized query complexity of a relation for error probability $\epsilon$ be denoted by $R_\epsilon(\cdot)$. We prove that for any relation $f \subseteq \{0,1\}^n \times \mathcal{R}$ and Boolean function $g:\{0,1\}^m \rightarrow…
We study the probability of Boolean functions with small max influence to become constant under random restrictions. Let $f$ be a Boolean function such that the variance of $f$ is $\Omega(1)$ and all its individual influences are bounded by…
A low-degree test is a collection of simple, local rules for checking the proximity of an arbitrary function to a low-degree polynomial. Each rule depends on the function's values at a small number of places. If a function satisfies many…
A fundamental problem in computer science is to find all the common zeroes of $m$ quadratic polynomials in $n$ unknowns over $\mathbb{F}_2$. The cryptanalysis of several modern ciphers reduces to this problem. Up to now, the best complexity…
Hardness results for maximum agreement problems have close connections to hardness results for proper learning in computational learning theory. In this paper we prove two hardness results for the problem of finding a low degree polynomial…
This paper considers the problem of approximating a Boolean function $f$ using another Boolean function from a specified class. Two classes of approximating functions are considered: $k$-juntas, and linear Boolean functions. The $n$ input…
We extend the definitions of complexity measures of functions to domains such as the symmetric group. The complexity measures we consider include degree, approximate degree, decision tree complexity, sensitivity, block sensitivity, and a…
Given query access to a monotone function $f\colon\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}$ with certificate complexity $C(f)$ and an input $x^{\star}$, we design an algorithm that outputs a size-$C(f)$ subset of $x^{\star}$ certifying the value of…
We establish a generic form of hardness amplification for the approximability of constant-depth Boolean circuits by polynomials. Specifically, we show that if a Boolean circuit cannot be pointwise approximated by low-degree polynomials to…
In 1986, Saks and Wigderson conjectured that the largest separation between deterministic and zero-error randomized query complexity for a total boolean function is given by the function $f$ on $n=2^k$ bits defined by a complete binary tree…
The determinantal complexity of a polynomial $P \in \mathbb{F}[x_1, \ldots, x_n]$ over a field $\mathbb{F}$ is the dimension of the smallest matrix $M$ whose entries are affine functions in $\mathbb{F}[x_1, \ldots, x_n]$ such that $P =…
In this paper, we consider bounded width circuits and nondeterministic circuits in three somewhat new directions. In the first part of this paper, we mainly consider bounded width circuits. The main purpose of this part is to prove that…
We reprove that the approximate degree of the OR function on n bits is Omega(sqrt(n)). We consider a linear program which is feasible if and only if there is an approximate polynomial for a given function, and apply the duality theory. The…
The Fourier-Walsh expansion of a Boolean function $f \colon \{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}$ is its unique representation as a multilinear polynomial. The Kindler-Safra theorem (2002) asserts that if in the expansion of $f$, the total weight…
A key fact in the theory of Boolean functions $f : \{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ is that they often undergo sharp thresholds. For example: if the function $f : \{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ is monotone and symmetric under a transitive action with…
We prove a new bound on the average sensitivity of polynomial threshold functions. In particular we show that a polynomial threshold function of degree $d$ in at most $n$ variables has average sensitivity at most…
We prove various theorems on approximation using polynomials with integer coefficients in the Bernstein basis of any given order. In the extreme, we draw the coefficients from $\{ \pm 1\}$ only. A basic case of our results states that for…
The minimum number of NOT gates in a logic circuit computing a Boolean function is called the inversion complexity of the function. In 1957, A. A. Markov determined the inversion complexity of every Boolean function and proved that…