Related papers: Sum-of-Squares Lower Bounds for the Minimum Circui…
It has often been claimed in recent papers that one can find a degree d Sum-of-Squares proof if one exists via the Ellipsoid algorithm. In [O17], Ryan O'Donnell notes this widely quoted claim is not necessarily true. He presents an example…
The minimum circuit size problem (MCSP) is a string compression problem with a parameter $s$ in which, given the truth table of a Boolean function over inputs of length $n$, one must answer whether it can be computed by a Boolean circuit of…
The Sum-of-Squares (SoS) hierarchy is a powerful framework for polynomial optimization and proof complexity, offering tight semidefinite relaxations that capture many classical algorithms. Despite its broad applicability, several works have…
We study the rank of the Sum of Squares (SoS) hierarchy over the Boolean hypercube for Symmetric Quadratic Functions (SQFs) in $n$ variables with roots placed in points $k-1$ and $k$. Functions of this type have played a central role in…
We show that if a system of degree-$k$ polynomial constraints on~$n$ Boolean variables has a Sums-of-Squares (SOS) proof of unsatisfiability with at most~$s$ many monomials, then it also has one whose degree is of the order of the square…
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…
The \emph{sum-of-squares (SoS) complexity} of a $d$-multiquadratic polynomial $f$ (quadratic in each of $d$ blocks of $n$ variables) is the minimum $s$ such that $f = \sum_{i=1}^s g_i^2$ with each $g_i$ $d$-multilinear. In the case $d=2$,…
Many previous Sum-of-Squares (SOS) lower bounds for CSPs had two deficiencies related to global constraints. First, they were not able to support a "cardinality constraint", as in, say, the Min-Bisection problem. Second, while the…
We show that sharp thresholds for Boolean functions directly imply average-case circuit lower bounds. More formally we show that any Boolean function exhibiting a sharp enough threshold at \emph{arbitrary} critical density cannot be…
Proving that there are problems in $\mathsf{P}^\mathsf{NP}$ that require boolean circuits of super-linear size is a major frontier in complexity theory. While such lower bounds are known for larger complexity classes, existing results only…
We exhibit families of $4$-CNF formulas over $n$ variables that have sums-of-squares (SOS) proofs of unsatisfiability of degree (a.k.a. rank) $d$ but require SOS proofs of size $n^{\Omega(d)}$ for values of $d = d(n)$ from constant all the…
The threshold degree of a Boolean function $f\colon\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}$ is the minimum degree of a real polynomial $p$ that represents $f$ in sign: $\mathrm{sgn}\; p(x)=(-1)^{f(x)}.$ A related notion is sign-rank, defined for a Boolean…
We prove super-polynomial lower bounds on the size of propositional proof systems operating with constant-depth algebraic circuits over fields of zero characteristic. Specifically, we show that the subset-sum variant…
The Sum-of-Squares (SoS) hierarchy of semidefinite programs is a powerful algorithmic paradigm which captures state-of-the-art algorithmic guarantees for a wide array of problems. In the average case setting, SoS lower bounds provide strong…
We continue the program of proving circuit lower bounds via circuit satisfiability algorithms. So far, this program has yielded several concrete results, proving that functions in $\text{Quasi-NP} = \text{NTIME}[n^{(\log n)^{O(1)}}]$ and…
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…
We introduce a method for proving Sum-of-Squares (SoS)/ Lasserre hierarchy lower bounds when the initial problem formulation exhibits a high degree of symmetry. Our main technical theorem allows us to reduce the study of the positive…
The best known size lower bounds against unrestricted circuits have remained around $3n$ for several decades. Moreover, the only known technique for proving lower bounds in this model, gate elimination, is inherently limited to proving…
The Minimum Circuit Size Problem for Partial Functions ($MCSP^*$) is hard assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) (Ilango, 2020). This breakthrough hardness result leveraged a characterization of the optimal $\{\land, \lor, \neg\}$…
We show that there is a constant $k$ such that Buss's intuitionistic theory $\mathsf{IS}^1_2$ does not prove that SAT requires co-nondeterministic circuits of size at least $n^k$. To our knowledge, this is the first unconditional…