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Nearly Optimal Pseudorandomness from Hardness
Existing proofs that deduce BPP = P from circuit lower bounds convert randomized algorithms into deterministic algorithms with a large polynomial slowdown. We convert randomized algorithms into deterministic ones with little slowdown . Specifically, assuming exponential lower bounds against randomized NP ∩ coNP circuits, formally known as randomized SVN circuits, we convert any randomized algorithm over inputs of length n running in time t ≥ n into a deterministic one running in time t 2+α for an arbitrarily small constant α > 0. Such a slowdown is nearly optimal for t close to n , since under standard complexity-theoretic assumptions, there are problems with an inherent quadratic derandomization slowdown. We also convert any randomized algorithm that errs rarely into a deterministic algorithm having a similar running time (with pre-processing). The latter derandomization result holds under weaker assumptions, of exponential lower bounds against deterministic SVN circuits. Our results follow from a new, nearly optimal, explicit pseudorandom generator fooling circuits of size s with seed length (1+α)log s , under the assumption that there exists a function f ∈ E that requires randomized SVN circuits of size at least 2 (1-α′) n , where α = O (α)′. The construction uses, among more »
Authors:
; ; ;
Award ID(s):
Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10387386
Journal Name:
Journal of the ACM
Volume:
69
Issue:
6
Page Range or eLocation-ID:
1 to 55
ISSN:
0004-5411
National Science Foundation
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1. Abstract

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$\mathsf {Quasi}\text {-}\mathsf {NP} = \mathsf {NTIME}[n^{(\log n)^{O(1)}}]$$\mathrm{Quasi}-\mathrm{NP}=\mathrm{NTIME}\left[{n}^{{\left(\mathrm{log}n\right)}^{O\left(1\right)}}\right]$and other complexity classes do not have small circuits (in the worst case and/or on average) from various circuit classes$\mathcal { C}$$C$, by showing that$\mathcal { C}$$C$admits non-trivial satisfiability and/or#SAT algorithms which beat exhaustive search by a minor amount. In this paper, we present a new strong lower bound consequence of having a non-trivial#SAT algorithm for a circuit class${\mathcal C}$$C$. Say that a symmetric Boolean functionf(x1,…,xn) issparseif it outputs 1 onO(1) values of${\sum }_{i} x_{i}$${\sum }_{i}{x}_{i}$. We show that for every sparsef, and for all “typical”$\mathcal { C}$$C$, faster#SAT algorithms for$\mathcal { C}$$C$circuits imply lower bounds against the circuit class$f \circ \mathcal { C}$$f\circ C$, which may bestrongerthan$\mathcal { C}$$C$itself. In particular:

#SAT algorithms fornk-size$\mathcal { C}$$C$-circuits running in 2n/nktime (for allk) implyNEXPdoes not have$(f \circ \mathcal { C})$$\left(f\circ C\right)$-circuits of polynomial size.

#SAT algorithms for$2^{n^{{\varepsilon }}}$${2}^{{n}^{\epsilon }}$-size$\mathcal { C}$$C$-circuits running in$2^{n-n^{{\varepsilon }}}$${2}^{n-{n}^{\epsilon }}$time (for someε> 0) implyQuasi-NPdoes not have$(f \circ \mathcal { C})$$\left(f\circ C\right)$-circuits of polynomial size.

Applying#SAT algorithms from the literature, one immediate corollary of our results is thatQuasi-NPdoes not haveEMAJACC0THRcircuits of polynomialmore »

3. We introduce a notion called entropic independence that is an entropic analog of spectral notions of high-dimensional expansion. Informally, entropic independence of a background distribution $\mu$ on $k$-sized subsets of a ground set of elements says that for any (possibly randomly chosen) set $S$, the relative entropy of a single element of $S$ drawn uniformly at random carries at most $O(1/k)$ fraction of the relative entropy of $S$. Entropic independence is the analog of the notion of spectral independence, if one replaces variance by entropy. We use entropic independence to derive tight mixing time bounds, overcoming the lossy nature of spectral analysis of Markov chains on exponential-sized state spaces. In our main technical result, we show a general way of deriving entropy contraction, a.k.a. modified log-Sobolev inequalities, for down-up random walks from spectral notions. We show that spectral independence of a distribution under arbitrary external fields automatically implies entropic independence. We furthermore extend our theory to the case where spectral independence does not hold under arbitrary external fields. To do this, we introduce a framework for obtaining tight mixing time bounds for Markov chains based on what we call restricted modified log-Sobolev inequalities, which guarantee entropy contraction not for allmore »