Questions tagged [lower-bounds]

questions about lowerbounds on functions, usually the complexity of an algorithm or a problem

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Is there a SETH (Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis) for CSP (Constraint Satisfaction Problem)?

The Constraint Satisfaction Problem I mentioned is similar to CNF-SAT: A variable can take values from some finite domain $D$ where $|D| = d$. A literal of variable $x$ is an expression of the form $x\...
Junqiang Peng's user avatar
-1 votes
0 answers
65 views

What are you favorite techniques at finding lower bounds?

I know that for finding lower bounds there are information-theoretic techniques like Le Cam's Two point method, Fano inequality and Assouad, other approaches use packing number. Is there a "...
rivana's user avatar
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Confusion about lower bounds and upper bounds in learning theory

In computer science, lower bounds and upper bounds are defined as follow: $$m \geq g(n) \implies m = \Omega(g(n))$$ $$m \leq g(n) \implies m = \mathcal{O}(g(n))$$ However, in proving lower bounds and ...
rivana's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
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Lower bound for constant degree monotone arithmetic circuits

Do we know an explicit constant degree polynomial that requires monotone arithmetic circuits of size $n^{10}$?
ivmihajlin's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
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Conditional lower bounds for reachability

Are there conditional lower bounds for the deterministic time complexity of directed reachability algorithms? Maybe something linked to the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH)? I mean some ...
Nicola Gigante's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
41 views

How to understand this evolutionary algorithm lower bound calculation?

I have a proof that I understand the most of it except one step Lemma 10. The expected number of steps the $(1+1)$ EA takes to optimize a linear function with all non-zero weights is $\Omega(n \ln n)$....
Edee's user avatar
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13 votes
1 answer
898 views

Law of the Excluded Middle in complexity theory

A recent blog post by Lance Fortnow discusses non-constructive proofs, where "non-constructive" here means that the law of the excluded middle is used in a substantive way. That is, one ...
Timothy Chow's user avatar
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The minimal number of messages required to solve the mutual exclusion problem in a symmetric distributed system

In the seminal paper introducing their namesake algorithm for solving the mutual exclusion problem in a distributed system, Ricart and Agrawala assert (in the first paragraph of section 4 Message ...
Evan Aad's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
155 views

Arithmetic Circuit Hierarchy?

The answers to the following question - Hierarchy theorem for circuit size give a "circuit hierarchy theorem" for boolean circuits. Does there exist a similar hierarchy theorem for ...
ramseysdream111's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
573 views

Find odd-ranked numbers from a list

From a list of $n$ distinct numbers, I want to find the set consisting of all odd-ranked numbers (1st, 3rd, 5th, ...). How many comparison queries do I need? I could sort the whole list using $O(n\log ...
TZM's user avatar
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Are exponential lower bounds known against $MOD_6 \circ MOD_3$ circuits computing $OR$?

Background What is currently known for depth-2 $CC^0$ circuits with restricted gate types: In [1] it is shown that $(MOD_p)^k \circ MOD_m$ circuits (that is, $k$ layers of $MOD_p$ gates at the output)...
Jake's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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Counting argument for LTF circuits

In Boolean circuit complexity, Shanon's counting argument shows that a random Boolean function on $n$-input bits requires a circuit of size $\Omega(2^n/n)$ to be computed by a circuit made of AND, OR ...
Tulasi's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
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What is (a reasonable conjectured lower bound on) the query complexity of solving an $n\times n$ system of linear equations given space $O(n)$?

I am faced with the following problem: A uniformly random $n \times n$ matrix $M$ over a finite field $\mathbb{F}$ is sampled. The algorithm has oracle access to the matrix entries, and each query to ...
Geoffroy Couteau's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
143 views

Time/space lower bounds on Majority (in the multitape TM model)

MAJORITY is the language of bitstrings where more than half of the bits are 1s. I'm interested in lower bounds in the multitape TM model. This can be solved in $DTISP(O(n), O(\log(n))$ with a naive ...
Jake's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
192 views

Exact lower bound on matrix multiplication

The recent publication in Nature of "Discovering faster matrix multiplication algorithms with reinforcement learning" by Fawzi et al. has shown a method for discovering fewer element ...
Mitch's user avatar
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12 votes
2 answers
681 views

Quadratic lower bound

Consider three arrays $A,B,C$ of size $N$ consisting of integers. I want to verify the following constraint: for any two indices $0 \leq i,j < N$, $A[i] < A[j] \land B[i] < B[j] \implies C[i] ...
karmanaut's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
321 views

Deciding if all matrix multiplication entries have at least two witnesses

Consider two square matrices $A(x,y)$ and $B(y,z)$ of dimensions $N×N$ containing boolean entries. Consider the output product matrix $C(x,z)$ where $C=AB$ (not boolean matrix multiplication but the ...
karmanaut's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
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Universal Relation

In the paper Tight Bounds for Lp Samplers, Finding Duplicates in Streams, and Related Problems, the authors consider the universal relation problem in 2-party communication complexity, which is ...
Theo's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
416 views

Trying to understand the intuition behind Yao's Minimax Principle

$\newcommand{\A}{\mathcal{A}}\newcommand{\I}{\mathcal{I}}\newcommand{\E}{\mathbb{E}}\newcommand{\C}[2]{C(I_{#1},A_{#2})}$The question that I am wondering in this post is if there is any intuition to ...
DenLilleMand's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
182 views

Sample complexity lower bound to learn the mode (the value with the highest probability) of a distribution with finite support

Say we have a black-box access to a distribution $\mathcal{D}$ with finite support $\{1,2,...,n\}$ with probability mass function $i \mapsto p_i$. How many samples of $\mathcal{D}$ are needed to learn ...
actcon's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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Is the center of a BFS tree a good approximation of the graphs center?

Given a graph $G=(V,E)$, a center is a vertex $v\in V$ with minimal eccentricity (i.e., $v\in\text{argmin}_v\max_u d(u,v)$). Finding the center of the graph can easily be done using all-pairs-shortest-...
Eli's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
49 views

Online assignment lower bound results

I am reading the following paper which presents a $(1-\epsilon)$-competitive online algorithm for the MaxMin (similar to the makespan) problem, defined as follows: a set of requests are arriving in an ...
Doc Stories's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
151 views

What is the least compressible probability distribution? (under entropy constraint, for an expected squared error metric)

Consider a distribution $\mathcal D$ over the reals, a real parameter $H\in\mathbb R^+$, and an integer parameter $k\in\mathbb N$. The Entropy-Constrained Quantization problem asks what is the best ...
R B's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
217 views

Lower bound for the OR problem

Let us have booleans $x_1, \cdots, x_n$. Any algorithm that determines $\bigvee_1^n x_i$ with probability at least $2/3$ requires $\Omega(n)$ time. It is not too difficult to prove this, but the proof ...
user2316602's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
195 views

Divide and Conquer Algorithm for 1-Median Problem

Let $P_1$ and $P_2$ be two disjoint point sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and $n = \vert P_1\vert = \vert P_2\vert$ and $P = P_1\cup P_2$. Let $c^\star$ be the optimal 1-median for $P$ and $opt^\star$ is the ...
Sudipta Roy's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
65 views

Decision tree vs. pebble game lower bounds

This question concerns two types of lower bounds. In a pebbling lower bound, we are concerned with the complexity of constructing the output from the input. For example, if the only way we could ...
Siddharth's user avatar
  • 803
6 votes
0 answers
153 views

$\mathbf{AC}^0$ lower bounds for $\mathsf{Gap}\text{-}\mathsf{Max3SAT}$

Various gapped maximization problems are known not to be $\mathbf{NP}$-hard under $\mathbf{AC}^0$ reductions, e.g., $\mathsf{Gap}_{1,\epsilon}\text{-}\mathsf{Max3SAT}$ (see, e.g., Proposition 4 of ...
Noah Singer's user avatar
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0 answers
77 views

Low-Treewidth Sorting Networks

It was previously asked if there exist Boolean circuits of treewidth $O(\log n)$ that compute the majority function $\text{MAJ}_n$ on $n$ inputs. While a construction using online algorithms and the ...
Cornelius Brand's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
124 views

Complexity for universal Counter Machine with {0,1}-valued registers

Consider a universal $\{0,1\}$-$k$-counter machine where each of the $k$ registers has a value in $\{0,1\}$ (as opposed to any non-negative integer in the usual formulation), and there are states $q_1,...
RRRR's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
171 views

Triangle detection hardness in regular graphs

Consider a tripartite graph over $n^{1-\epsilon}$ vertices each in sets $I, J, K$. Suppose we impose a constraint that every vertex has degree $n^\epsilon/c$ for some constant $\epsilon > 0$ and ...
karmanaut's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
78 views

Obtaining a lower bound of a matrix norm

I was wondering (on a setting where $\vec X_i \sim \mathcal{N}(\vec\mu, \mathbb{I})$ are $n$ random $d$-dimensional multivariate normal vectors with unknown mean $\vec\mu$) how I could obtain a lower ...
Jay's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
59 views

What is known about the stabilizer rank of this simple state?

Consider the uniform superposition of all length-$n$ bit-strings of Hammming weight $w$, $$ |\phi_w\rangle =\sum_{x\in \{0,1\}^n,|x|=w} |x\rangle$$ What is known or conjectured about the stabilizer ...
Lieuwe Vinkhuijzen's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
344 views

ETH based lower bound for $k$-COLORING of bounded degree graph

It is known that there is no $2^{o(n)}$-time algorithm for 3-COLORABILITY of graphs of maximum degree four, unless ETH fails [1]. Is a there a similar result for $k$-COLORABILITY assuming only ETH (...
Cyriac Antony's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
135 views

What is the best simulation of majority utilizing $\bmod\{2,3,\dots,p\}$ gates?

It is known $AC^0[2]$ cannot get majority function. Is there a literature on simulation of $MAJ$ function utilizing $AC^0[2,3,\dots,p]$ gates for a finite fixed set of primes $2$ to $p=O(1)$? What is ...
Turbo's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
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Comparing SAT to MCSP reduction class separations and faster SAT class separations?

Assume $SAT$ is in $QuasiP$. We immediately infer $NQuasiP=QuasiP$ and $EXP=NEXP$. From https://people.csail.mit.edu/rrw/easy-witness-nqp.pdf we infer $NQuasiP$ is not in $P/poly$ which implies $...
Turbo's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
165 views

Average-case randomized communication complexity in the small-advantage regime

Let $f\colon \{0, 1\}^n \times \{0, 1\}^n \to \{0, 1\}$. I'm interested in randomized communication protocols $\pi$ that compute $f$ in the weak sense that $$ \Pr_{x, y}\left[\Pr_r[\pi(x, y, r) = f(x, ...
William Hoza's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
62 views

Complexity Lower Bounds for 3D Sparse Gaussian Elimination

I'm interested in lower bounds on the complexity in the real-RAM model of solving systems of linear equations which have the sparsity pattern of a three-dimensional cubic mesh. Specifically, consider ...
eepperly16's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
217 views

Is there a known lower-bound on what the exponent could be, even if it turned out that P=NP?

Underlying motivation for the question: if someone showed that $\text{P}=\text{NP}$ but the algorithm thus produced for, e.g., $3\text{-SAT}$, runs in time $\Omega(n^G)$ where $G$ is Graham's number, ...
Jacques Carette's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
39 views

Maximum resistor with sublinear number of measurements

Consider a set $X = \{x_1, \dots, x_n\}$ of positive real numbers (or natural numbers, if you like) to be a set of resistors. For any subset $S \subset X$, we can build resistive circuits and measure ...
yadec's user avatar
  • 111
14 votes
1 answer
1k views

Are there languages decidable in linear time by RAM machines that have superlinear time complexity lower bounds for Multitape Turing machines?

Question: Are there languages decidable in linear time by RAM machines that have superlinear time complexity lower bounds for Multitape Turing machines? Background: I recently stumbled upon the ...
Michael Wehar's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
165 views

Computing and maintaining the minimum of a set $S$ of integers while allowing updates on $S$

This question is about computing and maintaining the minimum of a set $S$ of integers while allowing updates on $S$. The computation model we are considering is the unit-cost RAM machine with linear ...
Louis's user avatar
  • 775
1 vote
0 answers
154 views

Proof that quantum computers can't easily invert permutations

Let's say I am given a permutation $\sigma$ that maps $n$ bit strings to $n$ bit strings. I want to output $1$ if $\sigma^{-1}(1)$ is even and $0$ if $\sigma^{-1}(1)$ is odd. This is the famous ...
AngryLion's user avatar
  • 173
2 votes
0 answers
172 views

Time complexity of Succinct-CVP

I want to know what is the best known lower time complexity of Succinct-CVP? The succinct version of many P-complete problems are EXP-complete and Succinct-CVP is EXP-complete too (It is because of ...
Mohsen Ghorbani's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
166 views

Application of Yao's Minmax Principle for Adaptive Randomized Algorithms

Reference Request: I am interested in references where Yao's Minimax Principle is applied for adaptive randomized algorithms if any. More generally, I am interested in minimax lower bound results for ...
Soumya Basu's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
166 views

Why is it difficult for $GCT$ to prove super quadratic lower bound?

We have a quadratic lower bound for the Permanent versus Determinant problem. Why is it difficult for $GCT$ to improve it?
VS.'s user avatar
  • 539
5 votes
2 answers
402 views

Are there problems in $DTIME(n^k) - DTIME(n^{k-1})$ that are not hard for $DTIME(n^{k-1})$ under nearly linear time reductions?

Background It can be challenging to find computational problems that are solvable in $DTIME(n^k) - DTIME(n^{k-1})$ where $k \geq 2$. Although some natural problems are known to exist, many of them ...
Michael Wehar's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
220 views

Problem in deterministic time $n^p$ and not lower

I'm looking for any language $L$ candiate to be in $DTIME(n^p) -DTIME(n^{p-1})$ (it takes at least $n^{p-1}$ steps to determine if an input is in L with a 2-tape $TM$, but L is polynomially solvable). ...
ULechine's user avatar
  • 149
11 votes
3 answers
1k views

Maximum shortest word accepted by pushdown automata

Given a fixed alphabet, consider all deterministic pushdown automata with $n$ states that accept a nonempty language. What is the maximum length of the shortest word accepted by a deterministic ...
Antimony's user avatar
  • 917
3 votes
2 answers
129 views

Understanding non-equivalence of proof lengths according to proof systems

Here, in section 4.3, Fortnow says: But to prove P != NP we would need to show that tautologies cannot have short proofs in an arbitrary proof system. I am ...
Jérôme Verstrynge's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
102 views

Lower bounds for list/set data structures without delete

I'm interested in lower bounds on the amortized time cost for either of the following dynamic data structure problems, in the cell probe or RAM model, or any model that lets us do operations on words ...
Dustin Wehr's user avatar

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