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A Double Exponential Lower Bound for the Distinct Vectors Problem

Computational Complexity 2023-06-22 v3 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

In the (binary) Distinct Vectors problem we are given a binary matrix A with pairwise different rows and want to select at most k columns such that, restricting the matrix to these columns, all rows are still pairwise different. A result by Froese et al. [JCSS] implies a 2^2^(O(k)) * poly(|A|)-time brute-force algorithm for Distinct Vectors. We show that this running time bound is essentially optimal by showing that there is a constant c such that the existence of an algorithm solving Distinct Vectors with running time 2^(O(2^(ck))) * poly(|A|) would contradict the Exponential Time Hypothesis.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2002.01293,
  title  = {A Double Exponential Lower Bound for the Distinct Vectors Problem},
  author = {Marcin Pilipczuk and Manuel Sorge},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.01293},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:30:45.115Z