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Creators/Authors contains: "Putterman, Aaron"

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  1. Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 15, 2026
  2. Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 15, 2026
  3. A $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ -sparsifier of a hypergraph $G(V, E)$ is a (weighted) subgraph that preserves the value of every cut to within a $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ -factor. It is known that every hypergraph with $$n$$ vertices admits a $$(1 \pm \epsilon)$$ -sparsifier with $$\tilde{O}(n/{\epsilon}^{2})$$ hyperedges. In this work, we explore the task of building such a sparsifier by using only linear measurements (a linear sketch) over the hyperedges of $$G$$, and provide nearly-matching upper and lower bounds for this task. Specifically, we show that there is a randomized linear sketch of size $$\tilde{O}(nr\log(m)/\epsilon^{2})$$ bits which with high probability contains sufficient information to recover a $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ cut-sparsifier with $$\tilde{O}(n/\epsilon^{2})$$ hyperedges for any hypergraph with at most $$m$$ edges each of which has arity bounded by $$r$$. This immediately gives a dynamic streaming algorithm for hypergraph cut sparsification with an identical space complexity, improving on the previous best known bound of $$\tilde{O}(nr^{2}\log^{4}({m})/\epsilon^{2})$$ bits of space (Guha, McGregor, and Tench, PODS 2015). We complement our algorithmic result above with a nearly-matching lower bound. We show that for every $$\epsilon\in(0,1)$$, one needs $$\Omega(nr\log(m/n)/\log(n))$$ bits to construct a $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ -sparsifier via linear sketching, thus showing that our linear sketch achieves an optimal dependence on both $$r$$ and $$\log(m)$$. The starting point for our improved algorithm is importance sampling of hyperedges based on the new notion of $$k$$ -cut strength introduced in the recent work of Quanrud (SODA 2024). The natural algorithm based on this concept leads to $$\log m$$ levels of sampling where errors can potentially accumulate, and this accounts for the polylog $(m)$ losses in the sketch size of the natural algorithm. We develop a more intricate analysis of the accumulation in error to show most levels do not contribute to the error and actual loss is only polylog $(n)$. Combining with careful preprocessing (and analysis) this enables us to get rid of all extraneous $$\log m$$ factors in the sketch size, but the quadratic dependence on $$r$$ remains. This dependence originates from use of correlated $$\ell_{0}$$ -samplers to recover a large number of low-strength edges in a hypergraph simultaneously by looking at neighborhoods of individual vertices. In graphs, this leads to discovery of $$\Omega(n)$$ edges in a single shot, whereas in hypergraphs, this may potentially only reveal $$O$$($$n$$/$$r$$) new edges, thus requiring $$\Omega(r)$$ rounds of recovery. To remedy this we introduce a new technique of random fingerprinting of hyperedges which effectively eliminates the correlations created by large arity hyperedges, and leads to a scheme for recovering hyperedges of low strength with an optimal dependence on $$r$$. Putting all these ingredients together yields our linear sketching algorithm. Our lower bound is established by a reduction from the universal relation problem in the one-way communication setting. 
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  4. A $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ -sparsifier of a hypergraph $G(V, E)$ is a (weighted) subgraph that preserves the value of every cut to within a $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ -factor. It is known that every hypergraph with $$n$$ vertices admits a $$(1 \pm \epsilon)$$ -sparsifier with $$\tilde{O}(n/{\epsilon}^{2})$$ hyperedges. In this work, we explore the task of building such a sparsifier by using only linear measurements (a linear sketch) over the hyperedges of $$G$$, and provide nearly-matching upper and lower bounds for this task. Specifically, we show that there is a randomized linear sketch of size $$\tilde{O}(nr\log(m)/\epsilon^{2})$$ bits which with high probability contains sufficient information to recover a $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ cut-sparsifier with $$\tilde{O}(n/\epsilon^{2})$$ hyperedges for any hypergraph with at most $$m$$ edges each of which has arity bounded by $$r$$. This immediately gives a dynamic streaming algorithm for hypergraph cut sparsification with an identical space complexity, improving on the previous best known bound of $$\tilde{O}(nr^{2}\log^{4}({m})/\epsilon^{2})$$ bits of space (Guha, McGregor, and Tench, PODS 2015). We complement our algorithmic result above with a nearly-matching lower bound. We show that for every $$\epsilon\in(0,1)$$, one needs $$\Omega(nr\log(m/n)/\log(n))$$ bits to construct a $$(1\pm\epsilon)$$ -sparsifier via linear sketching, thus showing that our linear sketch achieves an optimal dependence on both $$r$$ and $$\log(m)$$. The starting point for our improved algorithm is importance sampling of hyperedges based on the new notion of $$k$$ -cut strength introduced in the recent work of Quanrud (SODA 2024). The natural algorithm based on this concept leads to $$\log m$$ levels of sampling where errors can potentially accumulate, and this accounts for the polylog $(m)$ losses in the sketch size of the natural algorithm. We develop a more intricate analysis of the accumulation in error to show most levels do not contribute to the error and actual loss is only polylog $(n)$. Combining with careful preprocessing (and analysis) this enables us to get rid of all extraneous $$\log m$$ factors in the sketch size, but the quadratic dependence on $$r$$ remains. This dependence originates from use of correlated $$\ell_{0}$$ -samplers to recover a large number of low-strength edges in a hypergraph simultaneously by looking at neighborhoods of individual vertices. In graphs, this leads to discovery of $$\Omega(n)$$ edges in a single shot, whereas in hypergraphs, this may potentially only reveal $$O$$($$n$$/$$r$$) new edges, thus requiring $$\Omega(r)$$ rounds of recovery. To remedy this we introduce a new technique of random fingerprinting of hyperedges which effectively eliminates the correlations created by large arity hyperedges, and leads to a scheme for recovering hyperedges of low strength with an optimal dependence on $$r$$. Putting all these ingredients together yields our linear sketching algorithm. Our lower bound is established by a reduction from the universal relation problem in the one-way communication setting. 
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  5. Recently, a number of variants of the notion of cut-preserving hypergraph sparsification have been studied in the literature. These variants include directed hypergraph sparsification, submodular hypergraph sparsification, general notions of approximation including spectral approximations, and more general notions like sketching that can answer cut queries using more general data structures than just sparsifiers. In this work, we provide reductions between these different variants of hypergraph sparsification and establish new upper and lower bounds on the space complexity of preserving their cuts. Specifically, we show that: 1) (1 ± ε) directed hypergraph spectral (respectively cut) sparsification on n vertices efficiently reduces to (1 ± ε) undirected hypergraph spectral (respectively cut) sparsification on n² + 1 vertices. Using the work of Lee and Jambulapati, Liu, and Sidford (STOC 2023) this gives us directed hypergraph spectral sparsifiers with O(n² log²(n) / ε²) hyperedges and directed hypergraph cut sparsifiers with O(n² log(n)/ ε²) hyperedges by using the work of Chen, Khanna, and Nagda (FOCS 2020), both of which improve upon the work of Oko, Sakaue, and Tanigawa (ICALP 2023). 2) Any cut sketching scheme which preserves all cuts in any directed hypergraph on n vertices to a (1 ± ε) factor (for ε = 1/(2^{O(√{log(n)})})) must have worst-case bit complexity n^{3 - o(1)}. Because directed hypergraphs are a subclass of submodular hypergraphs, this also shows a worst-case sketching lower bound of n^{3 - o(1)} bits for sketching cuts in general submodular hypergraphs. 3) (1 ± ε) monotone submodular hypergraph cut sparsification on n vertices efficiently reduces to (1 ± ε) symmetric submodular hypergraph sparsification on n+1 vertices. Using the work of Jambulapati et. al. (FOCS 2023) this gives us monotone submodular hypergraph sparsifiers with Õ(n / ε²) hyperedges, improving on the O(n³ / ε²) hyperedge bound of Kenneth and Krauthgamer (arxiv 2023). At a high level, our results use the same general principle, namely, by showing that cuts in one class of hypergraphs can be simulated by cuts in a simpler class of hypergraphs, we can leverage sparsification results for the simpler class of hypergraphs. 
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  6. Recently, a number of variants of the notion of cut-preserving hypergraph sparsification have been studied in the literature. These variants include directed hypergraph sparsification, submodular hypergraph sparsification, general notions of approximation including spectral approximations, and more general notions like sketching that can answer cut queries using more general data structures than just sparsifiers. In this work, we provide reductions between these different variants of hypergraph sparsification and establish new upper and lower bounds on the space complexity of preserving their cuts. Specifically, we show that: 1) (1 ± ε) directed hypergraph spectral (respectively cut) sparsification on n vertices efficiently reduces to (1 ± ε) undirected hypergraph spectral (respectively cut) sparsification on n² + 1 vertices. Using the work of Lee and Jambulapati, Liu, and Sidford (STOC 2023) this gives us directed hypergraph spectral sparsifiers with O(n² log²(n) / ε²) hyperedges and directed hypergraph cut sparsifiers with O(n² log(n)/ ε²) hyperedges by using the work of Chen, Khanna, and Nagda (FOCS 2020), both of which improve upon the work of Oko, Sakaue, and Tanigawa (ICALP 2023). 2) Any cut sketching scheme which preserves all cuts in any directed hypergraph on n vertices to a (1 ± ε) factor (for ε = 1/(2^{O(√{log(n)})})) must have worst-case bit complexity n^{3 - o(1)}. Because directed hypergraphs are a subclass of submodular hypergraphs, this also shows a worst-case sketching lower bound of n^{3 - o(1)} bits for sketching cuts in general submodular hypergraphs. 3) (1 ± ε) monotone submodular hypergraph cut sparsification on n vertices efficiently reduces to (1 ± ε) symmetric submodular hypergraph sparsification on n+1 vertices. Using the work of Jambulapati et. al. (FOCS 2023) this gives us monotone submodular hypergraph sparsifiers with Õ(n / ε²) hyperedges, improving on the O(n³ / ε²) hyperedge bound of Kenneth and Krauthgamer (arxiv 2023). At a high level, our results use the same general principle, namely, by showing that cuts in one class of hypergraphs can be simulated by cuts in a simpler class of hypergraphs, we can leverage sparsification results for the simpler class of hypergraphs. 
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  7. CSP sparsification, introduced by Kogan and Krauthgamer (ITCS 2015), considers the following question: how much can an instance of a constraint satisfaction problem be sparsified (by retaining a reweighted subset of the constraints) while still roughly capturing the weight of constraints satisfied by {\em every} assignment. CSP sparsification captures as a special case several well-studied problems including graph cut-sparsification, hypergraph cut-sparsification, hypergraph XOR-sparsification, and corresponds to a general class of hypergraph sparsification problems where an arbitrary 0/1-valued {\em splitting function} is used to define the notion of cutting a hyperedge (see, for instance, Veldt-Benson-Kleinberg SIAM Review 2022). The main question here is to understand, for a given constraint predicate P:Σr→{0,1} (where variables are assigned values in Σ), the smallest constant c such that O˜(nc) sized sparsifiers exist for every instance of a constraint satisfaction problem over P. A recent work of Khanna, Putterman and Sudan (SODA 2024) [KPS24] showed {\em existence} of near-linear size sparsifiers for new classes of CSPs. In this work (1) we significantly extend the class of CSPs for which nearly linear-size sparsifications can be shown to exist while also extending the scope to settings with non-linear-sized sparsifications; (2) we give a polynomial-time algorithm to extract such sparsifications for all the problems we study including the first efficient sparsification algorithms for the problems studied in [KPS24]. 
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  8. We introduce a novel family of expander-based error correcting codes. These codes can be sampled with randomness linear in the block-length, and achieve list decoding capacity (among other local properties). Our expander-based codes can be made starting from any family of sufficiently low-bias codes, and as a consequence, we give the first construction of a family of algebraic codes that can be sampled with linear randomness and achieve list-decoding capacity. We achieve this by introducing the notion of a pseudorandom puncturing of a code, where we select n indices of a base code C ⊂ 𝔽_q^m in a correlated fashion. Concretely, whereas a random linear code (i.e. a truly random puncturing of the Hadamard code) requires O(n log(m)) random bits to sample, we sample a pseudorandom linear code with O(n + log (m)) random bits by instantiating our pseudorandom puncturing as a length n random walk on an exapnder graph on [m]. In particular, we extend a result of Guruswami and Mosheiff (FOCS 2022) and show that a pseudorandom puncturing of a small-bias code satisfies the same local properties as a random linear code with high probability. As a further application of our techniques, we also show that pseudorandom puncturings of Reed-Solomon codes are list-recoverable beyond the Johnson bound, extending a result of Lund and Potukuchi (RANDOM 2020). We do this by instead analyzing properties of codes with large distance, and show that pseudorandom puncturings still work well in this regime. 
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  9. We introduce a notion of code sparsification that generalizes the notion of cut sparsification in graphs. For a (linear) code C ⊆ 𝔽nq of dimension k a (1 ± ɛ)-sparsification of size s is given by a weighted set S ⊆ [n] with |S| ≤ s such that for every codeword c ∈ C the projection c|s of c to the set S has (weighted) hamming weight which is a (1 ± ɛ) approximation of the hamming weight of c. We show that for every code there exists a (1 ± ɛ)-sparsification of size s = Õ(k log(q)/ɛ2). This immediately implies known results on graph and hypergraph cut sparsification up to polylogarithmic factors (with a simple unified proof) — the former follows from the well-known fact that cuts in a graph form a linear code over 𝔽2, while the latter is obtained by a simple encoding of hypergraph cuts. Further, by connections between the eigenvalues of the Laplacians of Cayley graphs over to the weights of codewords, we also give the first proof of the existence of spectral Cayley graph sparsifiers over by Cayley graphs, i.e., where we sparsify the set of generators to nearly-optimal size. Additionally, this work can be viewed as a continuation of a line of works on building sparsifiers for constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs); this result shows that there exist near-linear size sparsifiers for CSPs over 𝔽p-valued variables whose unsatisfying assignments can be expressed as the zeros of a linear equation modulo a prime p. As an application we give a full characterization of ternary Boolean CSPs (CSPs where the underlying predicate acts on three Boolean variables) that allow for near-linear size sparsification. This makes progress on a question posed by Kogan and Krauthgamer (ITCS 2015) asking which CSPs allow for near-linear size sparsifiers (in the number of variables). At the heart of our result is a codeword counting bound that we believe is of independent interest. Indeed, extending Karger's cut-counting bound (SODA 1993), we show a novel decomposition theorem of linear codes: we show that every linear code has a (relatively) small subset of coordinates such that after deleting those coordinates, the code on the remaining coordinates has a smooth upper bound on the number of codewords of small weight. Using the deleted coordinates in addition to a (weighted) random sample of the remaining coordinates now allows us to sparsify the whole code. The proof of this decomposition theorem extends Karger's proof (and the contraction method) in a clean way, while enabling the extensions listed above without any additional complexity in the proofs. 
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