The complexity of complex weighted Boolean #CSP

Abstract

We prove a complexity dichotomy theorem for the most general form of Boolean #CSP where every constraint function takes values in the field of complex numbers C. We first give a non-trivial tractable class of Boolean #CSP which was inspired by holographic reductions. The tractability crucially depends on algebraic cancelations which are absent for non-negative numbers. We then completely characterize all the tractable Boolean #CSP with complex-valued constraints and show that we have found all the tractable ones, and every remaining problem is #P-hard. We also improve our result by proving the same dichotomy theorem holds for Boolean #CSP with maximum degree 3 (every variable appears at most three times). The concept of Congruity and Semi-congruity provides a key insight and plays a decisive role in both the tractability and hardness proofs. We also introduce local holographic reductions as a technique in hardness proofs.