Low-Sensitivity Functions from Unambiguous Certificates

Shalev Ben-David; Pooya Hatami; Avishay Tal

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arXiv · 1605.07084

Low-Sensitivity Functions from Unambiguous Certificates

Shalev Ben-David·Pooya Hatami·Avishay Tal

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Abstract

We provide new query complexity separations against sensitivity for total Boolean functions: a power $3$ separation between deterministic (and even randomized or quantum) query complexity and sensitivity, and a power $2.22$ separation between certificate complexity and sensitivity. We get these separations by using a new connection between sensitivity and a seemingly unrelated measure called one-sided unambiguous certificate complexity ($UC_{min}$). We also show that $UC_{min}$ is lower-bounded by fractional block sensitivity, which means we cannot use these techniques to get a super-quadratic separation between $bs(f)$ and $s(f)$. We also provide a quadratic separation between the tree-sensitivity and decision tree complexity of Boolean functions, disproving a conjecture of Gopalan, Servedio, Tal, and Wigderson (CCC 2016). Along the way, we give a power $1.22$ separation between certificate complexity and one-sided unambiguous certificate complexity, improving the power $1.128$ separation due to G\"o\"os (FOCS 2015). As a consequence, we obtain an improved $\Omega(\log^{1.22} n)$ lower-bound on the co-nondeterministic communication complexity of the Clique vs. Independent Set problem.

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Shalev Ben-David, Pooya Hatami, Avishay Tal. 2016-05-23. Low-Sensitivity Functions from Unambiguous Certificates. https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.07084

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