arXiv subjects

Michael Saks

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Saks.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Concentration from Product Moments via an Additional Element of Randomness

The standard method of exponential moments for proving concentration bounds can often be replaced by an argument based on elementary symmetric polynomials. We introduce an additional element of randomness into this framework, which reduces the problem to bounding product moments over a uniformly sampled set of indices. We show that this approach gives useful bounds in three settings. For read-$\Delta$ families under limited independence, we obtain bounds governed by the degrees of randomly induced dependency subgraphs, improving the dependence on worst-case degrees. For random binary linear hashing with (semi-)random inputs, we derive fixed-bin and maximum-load bounds by controlling the rank defect of random tuples of input keys. Finally, for stochastic processes, we show how decay of product moments yields concentration bounds, recovering the spectral and mixing-time scales for finite-state Markov chains.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2026

Growth of Approximate Groups in Hyperbolic Groups

We prove a growth dichotomy for infinite approximate groups, and more generally approximate semigroups, in hyperbolic groups. If $G$ is a finitely generated hyperbolic group and $A\subseteq G$ is infinite with \[ A^2\subseteq AX \] for some finite $X\subseteq G$, then either $\langle A\rangle$ is virtually cyclic, or $A$ has positive exponential growth in the ambient word metric. We also introduce a product-growth criterion for the existence of growth rates of approximate semigroups. The criterion applies to hyperbolic groups: if $G$ is hyperbolic with finite generating set $S$, then there is a constant $c_{G,S}>0$ such that \[ |UV| \geq c_{G,S}\,\frac{|U||V|}{n+k+1}, \qquad U\subseteq B_n,\; V\subseteq B_k. \] The linear loss is optimal in order whenever $G$ contains an element of infinite order. In the free group with its standard generating set one may take $c_{G,S}=1/4$. We also prove that, in a free group, if $U\subseteq S_n$ and $V\subseteq S_k$, then \[ |UV|\geq \left(\frac{2}{3}+\frac{1}{3\cdot 4^{\min\{n,k\}}}\right)|U||V|, \] and this constant is sharp for all $n,k$.

math.GR↗

arXiv2026

Optimal Monotone Depth-Three Circuit Lower Bounds for Majority

Gurumuhkani et al. (CCC'24) introduced the local enumeration problem $Enum(k, t)$ as follows: for a natural number $k$ and a parameter $t$, given an $n$-variate $k$-CNF with no satisfying assignment with Hamming weight less than $t(n)$, enumerate all satisfying assignments of Hamming weight exactly $t(n)$. They showed that efficient algorithms for local enumeration yield new $k$-SAT algorithms and depth-3 lower bounds for Majority function. As the first non-trivial case, they gave an algorithm for $k = 3$ which in particular gave a new lower bound on the size of depth-3 circuits with bottom fan-in at most 3 computing Majority. In this paper, we give an optimal algorithm that solves local enumeration on monotone formulas for $k = 3$ and all $t \le n/2$. In particular, we obtain an optimal lower bound on the size of monotone depth-3 circuits with bottom fan-in at most 3 computing Majority.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2025

Local Enumeration: The Not-All-Equal Case

Gurumukhani et al. (CCC'24) proposed the local enumeration problem Enum(k, t) as an approach to break the Super Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SSETH): for a natural number $k$ and a parameter $t$, given an $n$-variate $k$-CNF with no satisfying assignment of Hamming weight less than $t(n)$, enumerate all satisfying assignments of Hamming weight exactly $t(n)$. Furthermore, they gave a randomized algorithm for Enum(k, t) and employed new ideas to analyze the first non-trivial case, namely $k = 3$. In particular, they solved Enum(3, n/2) in expected $1.598^n$ time. A simple construction shows a lower bound of $6^{\frac{n}{4}} \approx 1.565^n$. In this paper, we show that to break SSETH, it is sufficient to consider a simpler local enumeration problem NAE-Enum(k, t): for a natural number $k$ and a parameter $t$, given an $n$-variate $k$-CNF with no satisfying assignment of Hamming weight less than $t(n)$, enumerate all Not-All-Equal (NAE) solutions of Hamming weight exactly $t(n)$, i.e., those that satisfy and falsify some literal in every clause. We refine the algorithm of Gurumukhani et al. and show that it optimally solves NAE-Enum(3, n/2), namely, in expected time $poly(n) \cdot 6^{\frac{n}{4}}$.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2024

Randomized Greedy Online Edge Coloring Succeeds for Dense and Randomly-Ordered Graphs

Vizing's theorem states that any graph of maximum degree $\Delta$ can be properly edge colored with at most $\Delta+1$ colors. In the online setting, it has been a matter of interest to find an algorithm that can properly edge color any graph on $n$ vertices with maximum degree $\Delta = \omega(\log n)$ using at most $(1+o(1))\Delta$ colors. Here we study the na\"{i}ve random greedy algorithm, which simply chooses a legal color uniformly at random for each edge upon arrival. We show that this algorithm can $(1+\epsilon)\Delta$-color the graph for arbitrary $\epsilon$ in two contexts: first, if the edges arrive in a uniformly random order, and second, if the edges arrive in an adversarial order but the graph is sufficiently dense, i.e., $n = O(\Delta)$. Prior to this work, the random greedy algorithm was only known to succeed in trees. Our second result is applicable even when the adversary is adaptive, and therefore implies the existence of a deterministic edge coloring algorithm which $(1+\epsilon)\Delta$ edge colors a dense graph. Prior to this, the best known deterministic algorithm for this problem was the simple greedy algorithm which utilized $2\Delta-1$ colors.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2024

Almost Linear Size Edit Distance Sketch

Edit distance is an important measure of string similarity. It counts the number of insertions, deletions and substitutions one has to make to a string $x$ to get a string $y$. In this paper we design an almost linear-size sketching scheme for computing edit distance up to a given threshold $k$. The scheme consists of two algorithms, a sketching algorithm and a recovery algorithm. The sketching algorithm depends on the parameter $k$ and takes as input a string $x$ and a public random string $\rho$ and computes a sketch $sk_{\rho}(x;k)$, which is a digested version of $x$. The recovery algorithm is given two sketches $sk_{\rho}(x;k)$ and $sk_{\rho}(y;k)$ as well as the public random string $\rho$ used to create the two sketches, and (with high probability) if the edit distance $ED(x,y)$ between $x$ and $y$ is at most $k$, will output $ED(x,y)$ together with an optimal sequence of edit operations that transforms $x$ to $y$, and if $ED(x,y) > k$ will output LARGE. The size of the sketch output by the sketching algorithm on input $x$ is $k{2^{O(\sqrt{\log(n)\log\log(n)})}}$ (where $n$ is an upper bound on length of $x$). The sketching and recovery algorithms both run in time polynomial in $n$. The dependence of sketch size on $k$ is information theoretically optimal and improves over the quadratic dependence on $k$ in schemes of Kociumaka, Porat and Starikovskaya (FOCS'2021), and Bhattacharya and Kouck\'y (STOC'2023).

cs.DS↗

arXiv2024

Nearly Optimal List Labeling

The list-labeling problem captures the basic task of storing a dynamically changing set of up to $n$ elements in sorted order in an array of size $m = (1 + \Theta(1))n$. The goal is to support insertions and deletions while moving around elements within the array as little as possible. Until recently, the best known upper bound stood at $O(\log^2 n)$ amortized cost. This bound, which was first established in 1981, was finally improved two years ago, when a randomized $O(\log^{3/2} n)$ expected-cost algorithm was discovered. The best randomized lower bound for this problem remains $\Omega(\log n)$, and closing this gap is considered to be a major open problem in data structures. In this paper, we present the See-Saw Algorithm, a randomized list-labeling solution that achieves a nearly optimal bound of $O(\log n \operatorname{polyloglog} n)$ amortized expected cost. This bound is achieved despite at least three lower bounds showing that this type of result is impossible for large classes of solutions.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2024

Local Enumeration and Majority Lower Bounds

Depth-3 circuit lower bounds and $k$-SAT algorithms are intimately related; the state-of-the-art $\Sigma^k_3$-circuit lower bound and the $k$-SAT algorithm are based on the same combinatorial theorem. In this paper we define a problem which reveals new interactions between the two. Define Enum($k$, $t$) problem as: given an $n$-variable $k$-CNF and an initial assignment $\alpha$, output all satisfying assignments at Hamming distance $t$ from $\alpha$, assuming that there are no satisfying assignments of Hamming distance less than $t$ from $\alpha$. Observe that: an upper bound $b(n, k, t)$ on the complexity of Enum($k$, $t$) implies: - Depth-3 circuits: Any $\Sigma^k_3$ circuit computing the Majority function has size at least $\binom{n}{\frac{n}{2}}/b(n, k, \frac{n}{2})$. - $k$-SAT: There exists an algorithm solving $k$-SAT in time $O(\sum_{t = 1}^{n/2}b(n, k, t))$. A simple construction shows that $b(n, k, \frac{n}{2}) \ge 2^{(1 - O(\log(k)/k))n}$. Thus, matching upper bounds would imply a $\Sigma^k_3$-circuit lower bound of $2^{\Omega(\log(k)n/k)}$ and a $k$-SAT upper bound of $2^{(1 - \Omega(\log(k)/k))n}$. The former yields an unrestricted depth-3 lower bound of $2^{\omega(\sqrt{n})}$ solving a long standing open problem, and the latter breaks the Super Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis. In this paper, we propose a randomized algorithm for Enum($k$, $t$) and introduce new ideas to analyze it. We demonstrate the power of our ideas by considering the first non-trivial instance of the problem, i.e., Enum($3$, $\frac{n}{2}$). We show that the expected running time of our algorithm is $1.598^n$, substantially improving on the trivial bound of $3^{n/2} \simeq 1.732^n$. This already improves $\Sigma^3_3$ lower bounds for Majority function to $1.251^n$. The previous bound was $1.154^n$ which follows from the work of H{\aa}stad, Jukna, and Pudl\'ak (Comput. Complex.'95).

cs.CC↗

arXiv2021

Approximating Edit Distance Within Constant Factor in Truly Sub-Quadratic Time

Edit distance is a measure of similarity of two strings based on the minimum number of character insertions, deletions, and substitutions required to transform one string into the other. The edit distance can be computed exactly using a dynamic programming algorithm that runs in quadratic time. Andoni, Krauthgamer, and Onak (2010) gave a nearly linear time algorithm that approximates edit distance within an approximation factor $\text{poly}(\log n)$. In this paper, we provide an algorithm with running time $\tilde{O}(n^{2-2/7})$ that approximates the edit distance within a constant factor.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2020

On the rational relationships among pseudo-roots of a non-commutative polynomial

For a non-commutative ring R, we consider factorizations of polynomials in R[t] where t is a central variable. A pseudo-root of a polynomial p(t) is an element x in R, for which there exist polynomials q(t) and s(t) such that p(t)=q(t)(t-x)s(t). We investigate the rational relationships that hold among the pseudo-roots of p(t) by using the diamond operations for cover graphs of modular lattices.

math.RA↗

arXiv2018

An Asymptotically Tight Bound on the Number of Relevant Variables in a Bounded Degree Boolean Function

We prove that there is a constant $C\leq 6.614$ such that every Boolean function of degree at most $d$ (as a polynomial over $\mathbb{R}$) is a $C\cdot 2^d$-junta, i.e. it depends on at most $C\cdot 2^d$ variables. This improves the $d\cdot 2^{d-1}$ upper bound of Nisan and Szegedy [Computational Complexity 4 (1994)]. Our proof uses a new weighting scheme where we assign weights to variables based on the highest degree monomial they appear on. The bound of $C\cdot 2^d$ is tight up to the constant $C$ as a lower bound of $2^d-1$ is achieved by a read-once decision tree of depth $d$. We slightly improve the lower bound by constructing, for each positive integer $d$, a function of degree $d$ with $3\cdot 2^{d-1}-2$ relevant variables. A similar construction was independently observed by Shinkar and Tal.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

On the Discrepancy of Random Matrices with Many Columns

Motivated by the Komlós conjecture in combinatorial discrepancy, we study the discrepancy of random matrices with $m$ rows and $n$ independent columns drawn from a bounded lattice random variable. It is known that for $n$ tending to infinity and $m$ fixed, with high probability the $\ell_\infty$-discrepancy is at most twice the $\ell_\infty$-covering radius of the integer span of the support of the random variable. However, the easy argument for the above fact gives no concrete bounds on the failure probability in terms of $n$. We prove that the failure probability is inverse polynomial in $m, n$ and some well-motivated parameters of the random variable. We also obtain the analogous bounds for the discrepancy in arbitrary norms. We apply these results to two random models of interest. For random $t$-sparse matrices, i.e. uniformly random matrices with $t$ ones and $m-t$ zeroes in each column, we show that the $\ell_\infty$-discrepancy is at most $2$ with probability $1 - O(\sqrt{ \log n/n})$ for $n = Ω(m^3 \log^2 m)$. This improves on a bound proved by Ezra and Lovett (Ezra and Lovett, Approx+Random, 2016) showing that the same is true for $n$ at least $m^t$. For matrices with random unit vector columns, we show that the $\ell_\infty$-discrepancy is $O(\exp(\sqrt{ n/m^3}))$ with probability $1 - O(\sqrt{ \log n/n})$ for $n = Ω(m^3 \log^2 m).$ Our approach, in the spirit of Kuperberg, Lovett and Peled (G. Kuperberg, S. Lovett and R. Peled, STOC 2012), uses Fourier analysis to prove that for $m \times n$ matrices $M$ with i.i.d. columns, and $m$ sufficiently large, the distribution of $My$ for random $y \in \{-1,1\}^n$ obeys a local limit theorem.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

Lower bounds for Combinatorial Algorithms for Boolean Matrix Multiplication

In this paper we propose models of combinatorial algorithms for the Boolean Matrix Multiplication (BMM), and prove lower bounds on computing BMM in these models. First, we give a relatively relaxed combinatorial model which is an extension of the model by Angluin (1976), and we prove that the time required by any algorithm for the BMM is at least $Ω(n^3 / 2^{O( \sqrt{ \log n })})$. Subsequently, we propose a more general model capable of simulating the "Four Russians Algorithm". We prove a lower bound of $Ω(n^{7/3} / 2^{O(\sqrt{ \log n })})$ for the BMM under this model. We use a special class of graphs, called $(r,t)$-graphs, originally discovered by Rusza and Szemeredi (1978), along with randomization, to construct matrices that are hard instances for our combinatorial models.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2017

Towards an algebraic natural proofs barrier via polynomial identity testing

We observe that a certain kind of algebraic proof - which covers essentially all known algebraic circuit lower bounds to date - cannot be used to prove lower bounds against VP if and only if what we call succinct hitting sets exist for VP. This is analogous to the Razborov-Rudich natural proofs barrier in Boolean circuit complexity, in that we rule out a large class of lower bound techniques under a derandomization assumption. We also discuss connections between this algebraic natural proofs barrier, geometric complexity theory, and (algebraic) proof complexity.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2016

Noisy population recovery in polynomial time

In the noisy population recovery problem of Dvir et al., the goal is to learn an unknown distribution $f$ on binary strings of length $n$ from noisy samples. For some parameter $μ\in [0,1]$, a noisy sample is generated by flipping each coordinate of a sample from $f$ independently with probability $(1-μ)/2$. We assume an upper bound $k$ on the size of the support of the distribution, and the goal is to estimate the probability of any string to within some given error $\varepsilon$. It is known that the algorithmic complexity and sample complexity of this problem are polynomially related to each other. We show that for $μ> 0$, the sample complexity (and hence the algorithmic complexity) is bounded by a polynomial in $k$, $n$ and $1/\varepsilon$ improving upon the previous best result of $\mathsf{poly}(k^{\log\log k},n,1/\varepsilon)$ due to Lovett and Zhang. Our proof combines ideas from Lovett and Zhang with a \emph{noise attenuated} version of Möbius inversion. In turn, the latter crucially uses the construction of \emph{robust local inverse} due to Moitra and Saks.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2015

A communication game related to the sensitivity conjecture

One of the major outstanding foundational problems about boolean functions is the sensitivity conjecture, which (in one of its many forms) asserts that the degree of a boolean function (i.e. the minimum degree of a real polynomial that interpolates the function) is bounded above by some fixed power of its sensitivity (which is the maximum vertex degree of the graph defined on the inputs where two inputs are adjacent if they differ in exactly one coordinate and their function values are different). We propose an attack on the sensitivity conjecture in terms of a novel two-player communication game. A lower bound of the form $n^{Ω(1)}$ on the cost of this game would imply the sensitivity conjecture. To investigate the problem of bounding the cost of the game, three natural (stronger) variants of the question are considered. For two of these variants, protocols are presented that show that the hoped for lower bound does not hold. These protocols satisfy a certain monotonicity property, and (in contrast to the situation for the two variants) we show that the cost of any monotone protocol satisfies a strong lower bound. There is an easy upper bound of $\sqrt{n}$ on the cost of the game. We also improve slightly on this upper bound.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2015

Efficient indexing of necklaces and irreducible polynomials over finite fields

We study the problem of indexing irreducible polynomials over finite fields, and give the first efficient algorithm for this problem. Specifically, we show the existence of poly(n, log q)-size circuits that compute a bijection between {1, ... , |S|} and the set S of all irreducible, monic, univariate polynomials of degree n over a finite field F_q. This has applications in pseudorandomness, and answers an open question of Alon, Goldreich, Håstad and Peralta[AGHP]. Our approach uses a connection between irreducible polynomials and necklaces ( equivalence classes of strings under cyclic rotation). Along the way, we give the first efficient algorithm for indexing necklaces of a given length over a given alphabet, which may be of independent interest.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2014

Hellinger volume and number-on-the-forehead communication complexity

Information-theoretic methods have proven to be a very powerful tool in communication complexity, in particular giving an elegant proof of the linear lower bound for the two-party disjointness function, and tight lower bounds on disjointness in the multi-party number-in-the-hand (NIH) model. In this paper, we study the applicability of information theoretic methods to the multi-party number-on-the-forehead model (NOF), where determining the complexity of disjointness remains an important open problem. There are two basic parts to the NIH disjointness lower bound: a direct sum theorem and a lower bound on the one-bit AND function using a beautiful connection between Hellinger distance and protocols revealed by Bar-Yossef, Jayram, Kumar and Sivakumar [BYJKS04]. Inspired by this connection, we introduce the notion of Hellinger volume. We show that it lower bounds the information cost of multi-party NOF protocols and provide a small toolbox that allows one to manipulate several Hellinger volume terms and lower bound a Hellinger volume when the distributions involved satisfy certain conditions. In doing so, we prove a new upper bound on the difference between the arithmetic mean and the geometric mean in terms of relative entropy. We then apply these new tools to obtain a lower bound on the informational complexity of the AND_k function in the NOF setting. Finally, we discuss the difficulties of proving a direct sum theorem for information cost in the NOF model.

cs.CC↗