Related papers: An SoS Entropy Dichotomy via Windowed Hypercontrac…

We show that under minimal assumptions on a class of functions $\mathcal{H}$ defined on a probability space $(\mathcal{X},\mu)$, there is a threshold $\Delta_0$ satisfying the following: for every $\Delta\geq\Delta_0$, with probability at…

We propose a simple yet powerful test statistic to quantify the discrepancy between two conditional distributions. The new statistic avoids the explicit estimation of the underlying distributions in highdimensional space and it operates on…

We study when low coordinate degree functions (LCDF) -- linear combinations of functions depending on small subsets of entries of a vector -- can hypothesis test between high-dimensional probability measures. These functions are a…

We prove a simple, nearly tight lower bound on the approximate degree of the two-level $\mathsf{AND}$-$\mathsf{OR}$ tree using symmetrization arguments. Specifically, we show that $\widetilde{\mathrm{deg}}(\mathsf{AND}_m \circ…

Given a factor code $\pi$ from a one-dimensional shift of finite type $X$ onto an irreducible sofic shift $Y$, if $\pi$ is finite-to-one there is an invariant called the degree of $\pi$ which is defined the number of preimages of a typical…

The Sum-of-Squares (SoS) hierarchy, also known as Lasserre hierarchy, has emerged as a promising tool in optimization. However, it remains unclear whether fixed-degree SoS proofs can be automated [O'Donnell (2017)]. Indeed, there are…

Given a large data matrix $A\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$, we consider the problem of determining whether its entries are i.i.d. with some known marginal distribution $A_{ij}\sim P_0$, or instead $A$ contains a principal submatrix $A_{{\sf…

When deploying a trained machine learning model in the real world, it is inevitable to receive inputs from out-of-distribution (OOD) sources. For instance, in continual learning settings, it is common to encounter OOD samples due to the…

The Kochen-Specker (KS) theorem is a corner-stone result in the foundations of quantum mechanics describing the fundamental difference between quantum theory and classical non-contextual theories. Recently specific substructures termed…

We study the problem of how many different sums of squares decompositions a general polynomial $f$ with SOS-rank $k$ admits. We show that there is a link between the variety $\mathrm{SOS}_k(f)$ of all SOS-decompositions of $f$ and the…

The low-degree polynomial framework has emerged as a powerful tool for providing evidence of statistical-computational gaps in high-dimensional inference. For detection problems, the standard approach bounds the low-degree advantage through…

Recently, arguments for a refined de Sitter conjecture were put forward in arXiv:1810.05506. Using the large distance conjecture of arXiv:hep-th/0605264, the authors provide evidence for this dS conjecture in asymptotic regimes of field…

We prove that every infinite minimal subshift with word complexity $p(q)$ satisfying $\limsup p(q)/q < 3/2$ is measure-theoretically isomorphic to its maximal equicontinuous factor; in particular, it has measurably discrete spectrum. Among…

Let $W_N(\beta) = \mathrm{E}_0\left[e^{ \sum_{n=1}^N \beta \omega(n,S_n) - N\beta^2/2}\right]$ be the partition function of a two-dimensional directed polymer in a random environment, where $\omega(i,x), i\in \mathbb{N}, x\in \mathbb{Z}^2$…

We study properties of popular near-uniform (Dirichlet) priors for learning undersampled probability distributions on discrete nonmetric spaces and show that they lead to disastrous results. However, an Occam-style phase space argument…

We determine the computational complexity of approximately counting the total weight of variable assignments for every complex-weighted Boolean constraint satisfaction problem (or CSP) with any number of additional unary (i.e., arity 1)…

Let $\mathbf{X} = (X_i)_{1\leq i \leq n}$ be an i.i.d. sample of square-integrable variables in $\mathbb{R}^d$, \GB{with common expectation $\mu$ and covariance matrix $\Sigma$, both unknown.} We consider the problem of testing if $\mu$ is…

The Separating Hyperplane theorem is a fundamental result in Convex Geometry with myriad applications. Our first result, Random Separating Hyperplane Theorem (RSH), is a strengthening of this for polytopes. $\rsh$ asserts that if the…

This note concerns the trade-off between the degree of the constraint graph and the gap in hardness of approximating the Min-Rep variant of Label Cover (aka Projection Game). We make a very simple observation that, for NP-hardness with gap…

This work is concerned with the proof-complexity of certifying that optimization problems do \emph{not} have good solutions. Specifically we consider bounded-degree "Sum of Squares" (SOS) proofs, a powerful algebraic proof system introduced…