Polynomial-time Hierarchy Research Articles

Positivity of the Symmetric Group Characters Is as Hard as the Polynomial Time Hierarchy

Abstract We prove that deciding the vanishing of the character of the symmetric group is $\textsf{C}_= \textsf{P}$-complete. We use this hardness result to prove that the absolute value and also the square of the character are not contained in $\textsf{#P}$, unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses to the second level. This rules out the existence of any (unsigned) combinatorial description for the square of the characters. As a byproduct of our proof, we conclude that deciding positivity of the character is $\textsf{PP}$-complete under many-one reductions, and hence $\textsf{PH}$-hard under Turing reductions.

Second-Order Quantified Boolean Logic

Second-order quantified Boolean formulas (SOQBFs) generalize quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs) by admitting second-order quantifiers on function variables in addition to first-order quantifiers on atomic variables. Recent endeavors establish that the complexity of SOQBF satisfiability corresponds to the exponential-time hierarchy (EXPH), similar to that of QBF satisfiability corresponding to the polynomial-time hierarchy (PH). This fact reveals the succinct expression power of SOQBFs in encoding decision problems not efficiently doable by QBFs. In this paper, we investigate the second-order quantified Boolean logic with the following main results: First, we present a procedure of quantifier elimination converting SOQBFs to QBFs and a game interpretation of SOQBF semantics. Second, we devise a sound and complete refutation-proof system for SOQBF. Third, we develop an algorithm for countermodel extraction from a refutation proof. Finally, we show potential applications of SOQBFs in system design and multi-agent planning. With these advances, we anticipate practical tools for development.

Quantum generalizations of the polynomial hierarchy with applications to QMA(2)

The polynomial-time hierarchy (PH) has proven to be a powerful tool for providing separations in computational complexity theory (modulo standard conjectures such as PH do not collapse). Here, we study whether two quantum generalizations of PH can similarly prove separations in the quantum setting. The first generalization, \(\rm{QCPH}\), uses classical proofs, and the second, \(\rm{QPH}\), uses quantum proofs. For the former, we show quantum variants of the Karp-Lipton theorem and Toda's theorem. For the latter, we place its third level, \(\rm{Q\Sigma_3}\), into NEXP using the ellipsoid method for efficiently solving semidefinite programs. These results yield two implications for \(\rm{QMA(2)}\), the variant of Quantum Merlin-Arthur (\(\rm{QMA}\)) with two unentangled proofs, a complexity class whose characterization has proven difficult. First, if \(\rm{QCPH = QPH}\) (i.e., alternating quantifiers are sufficiently powerful so as to make classical and quantum proofs ``equivalent''), then QMA(2) is in the counting hierarchy (specifically, in \({\rm P}^{{\rm pp}^{{\rm pp}}}\)). Second, because \(\rm{QMA(2)}\subseteq \rm{Q\Sigma_3}\), \(\rm{QMA(2)}\) is strictly contained in NEXP unless \(\rm{QMA(2)}=\rm{Q\Sigma_3}\) (i.e., alternating quantifiers do not help in the presence of ``unentanglement'').

The complexity of finding temporal separators under waiting time constraints

In this work, we investigate the computational complexity of Restless Temporal(s,z)-Separation, where we are asked whether it is possible to destroy all restless temporal paths between two distinct vertices s and z by deleting at most k vertices from a temporal graph. A temporal graph has a fixed vertex set but the edges have (discrete) time stamps. A restless temporal path uses edges with non-decreasing time stamps and the time spent at each vertex must not exceed a given duration Δ.Restless Temporal(s,z)-Separation naturally generalizes the NP-hard Temporal(s,z)-Separation problem. We show that Restless Temporal(s,z)-Separation is complete for Σ2P, a complexity class located in the second level of the polynomial time hierarchy. We further provide some insights in the parameterized complexity of Restless Temporal(s,z)-Separation parameterized by the separator size k.

Parameterized Algorithms for Power-Efficiently Connecting Wireless Sensor Networks: Theory and Experiments

We study a problem of energy-efficiently connecting a symmetric wireless communication network: given an n-vertex graph with edge weights, find a connected spanning subgraph of minimum cost, where the cost is determined by each vertex paying the heaviest edge incident to it in the subgraph. The problem is known to be NP-hard. Strengthening this hardness result, we show that even o(log n)-approximating the difference d between the optimal solution cost and a natural lower bound is NP-hard. Moreover, we show that under the exponential time hypothesis, there are no exact algorithms running in 2o(n) time or in [Formula: see text] time for any computable function f. We also show that the special case of connecting c network components with minimum additional cost generally cannot be polynomial-time reduced to instances of size cO(1) unless the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses. On the positive side, we provide an algorithm that reconnects O(log n)-connected components with minimum additional cost in polynomial time. These algorithms are motivated by application scenarios of monitoring areas or where an existing sensor network may fall apart into several connected components because of sensor faults. In experiments, the algorithm outperforms CPLEX with known integer linear programming (ILP) formulations when n is sufficiently large compared with c. Summary of Contribution: Wireless sensor networks are used to monitor air pollution, water pollution, and machine health; in forest fire and landslide detection; and in natural disaster prevention. Sensors in wireless sensor networks are often battery-powered and disposable, so one may be interested in lowering the energy consumption of the sensors in order to achieve a long lifetime of the network. We study the min-power symmetric connectivity problem, which models the task of assigning transmission powers to sensors so as to achieve a connected communication network with minimum total power consumption. The problem is NP-hard. We provide perhaps the first parameterized complexity study of optimal and approximate solutions for the problem. Our algorithms work in polynomial time in the scenario where one has to reconnect a sensor network with n sensors and O(log n)-connected components by means of a minimum transmission power increase or if one can find transmission power lower bounds that already yield a network with O(log n)-connected components. In experiments, we show that, in this scenario, our algorithms outperform previously known exact algorithms based on ILP formulations.

English

In this paper, an original reduction algorithm for solving simultaneous multivariate polynomial equations is presented. The algorithm is exponential in complexity, but the well-known algorithms, such as the extended Euclidean algorithm and Buchberger's algorithm, are superexponential. The superexponential complexity of the well-known algorithms is due to their not being "minimal" in a certain sense. Buchberger's algorithm produces a Groebner basis. The proposed original reduction algorithm achieves the required task, via computation of determinants of parametric Sylvester matrices, and produces a Rabin basis, which is shown to be minimal, when two multivariate polynomials are reduced at a time. The minimality of Rabin basis allows us to prove exponential lower bounds for the space complexity of an algebraic proof of certification, for a specific computational problem in the computational complexity class PSPACE, showing that the complexity classes PSPACE and P cannot be the same. By the same reasoning, it follows that Co-NP is not the same as either of the complexity classes NP and P, and that the polynomial time hierarchy does not collapse. It is also shown that the class BPP of languages decidable by bounded error probabilistic algorithms with (probabilistic) polynomial time proofs for the membership of input words is not the same as any one of the complexity classes P, NP and Co-NP. It follows again, from the discussions, that the complexity classes NP and P are not the same, by relativization of BPP, with respect to P and NP.

Polynomial-Time Random Oracles and Separating Complexity Classes

Bennett and Gill [1981] showed that P A ≠ NP A ≠ coNP A for a random oracle A , with probability 1. We investigate whether this result extends to individual polynomial-time random oracles. We consider two notions of random oracles: p-random oracles in the sense of martingales and resource-bounded measure [Lutz 1992; Ambos-Spies et al. 1997], and p-betting-game random oracles using the betting games generalization of resource-bounded measure [Buhrman et al. 2000]. Every p-betting-game random oracle is also p-random; whether the two notions are equivalent is an open problem. (1) We first show that P A ≠ NP A for every oracle A that is p-betting-game random. Ideally, we would extend (1) to p-random oracles. We show that answering this either way would imply an unrelativized complexity class separation: (2) If P A ≠ NP A relative to every p-random oracle A , then BPP ≠ EXP. (3) If P A ≠ NP A relative to some p-random oracle A , then P ≠ PSPACE. Rossman, Servedio, and Tan [2015] showed that the polynomial-time hierarchy is infinite relative to a random oracle, solving a longstanding open problem. We consider whether we can extend (1) to show that PH A is infinite relative to oracles A that are p-betting-game random. Showing that PH A separates at even its first level would also imply an unrelativized complexity class separation: (4) If NP A ≠ coNP A for a p-betting-game measure 1 class of oracles A , then NP ≠ EXP. (5) If PH A is infinite relative to every p-random oracle A , then PH ≠ EXP. We also consider random oracles for time versus space, for example: (6) L A ≠ P A relative to every oracle A that is p-betting-game random.

Solving a PSPACE-complete problem with cP systems

There have been a few NP-hard problems solved using cP systems including the travelling salesman problem. However, these problems are typically in NP rather than higher in the polynomial time hierarchy. In this paper, we solve QSAT (also known as TQBF), which is a well-known PSPACE-complete problem. Compared to other extant confluent P systems solutions, our deterministic cP solution only uses a small constant number of custom alphabet symbols (19), a small constant number of rules (10) and a small constant upper limit of membrane nesting depth (6), independent of the problem size.

Closest substring problems for regular languages

The Closest Substring problem asks whether there exists a consensus string w of given length ℓ such that each string in a set of strings L has a substring whose edit distance is at most r (called the radius) from w. The Closest Substring problem has been studied for finite sets of strings and is known to be NP-hard. We show that the Closest Substring problem for regular languages represented by nondeterministic finite automata (NFA) is PSPACE-complete. The problem remains PSPACE-hard even when the input is a deterministic finite automaton and the length ℓ and radius r are given in unary. Also we show that the Closest Substring problem for acyclic NFAs lies in the second level of the polynomial-time hierarchy and is both NP-hard and coNP-hard.

Robust approach to restricted items selection problem

We consider the robust version of items selection problem, in which the goal is to choose representatives from a family of sets, preserving constraints on the allowed items’ combinations. We prove NP-hardness of the deterministic version, and establish polynomially solvable special cases. Next, we consider the robust version in which we aim at minimizing the maximum regret of the solution under interval parameter uncertainty. We show that this problem is hard for the second level of polynomial-time hierarchy. We develop exact solution algorithms for the robust problem, based on cut generation and mixed-integer programming, and present the results of computational experiments.

A restricted second-order logic for non-deterministic poly-logarithmic time

AbstractWe introduce a restricted second-order logic $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ for finite structures where second-order quantification ranges over relations of size at most poly-logarithmic in the size of the structure. We demonstrate the relevance of this logic and complexity class by several problems in database theory. We then prove a Fagin’s style theorem showing that the Boolean queries which can be expressed in the existential fragment of $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ correspond exactly to the class of decision problems that can be computed by a non-deterministic Turing machine with random access to the input in time $O((\log n)^k)$ for some $k \ge 0$, i.e. to the class of problems computable in non-deterministic poly-logarithmic time. It should be noted that unlike Fagin’s theorem which proves that the existential fragment of second-order logic captures NP over arbitrary finite structures, our result only holds over ordered finite structures, since $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ is too weak as to define a total order of the domain. Nevertheless, $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ provides natural levels of expressibility within poly-logarithmic space in a way which is closely related to how second-order logic provides natural levels of expressibility within polynomial space. Indeed, we show an exact correspondence between the quantifier prefix classes of $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ and the levels of the non-deterministic poly-logarithmic time hierarchy, analogous to the correspondence between the quantifier prefix classes of second-order logic and the polynomial-time hierarchy. Our work closely relates to the constant depth quasipolynomial size AND/OR circuits and corresponding restricted second-order logic defined by David A. Mix Barrington in 1992. We explore this relationship in detail.

A graph-theoretical basis of stochastic-cascading network influence: Characterizations of influence-based centrality

Ker-I Ko (葛可一, 1950-2018) made multiple pioneering and milestone contributions to structural complexity theory and real-number computation. His sharp perception of both discrete and continuous structures had led him to study fundamental concepts from one-way functions [29], to polynomial-time hierarchy [21], from integral equations [24], to real functions [28], from fractals [27] to fixed-points [25], from optimization [20] to relativization [22], from instance complexity [36] to real complexity [28], from NP-completeness [31] to exponential-time completeness [23]. In his final two years, he turned his focus to game-theoretical designs for dynamic processes over social networks [12,33].For this honorary special issue in memory of Professor Ker-I Ko, we are pleased to be able to contribute a paper with scope intersecting the areas that drew his last attention, and with results connecting discrete and continuous formulations of network dynamics. We prove that the complex stochastic network-influence processes have a simple graph-theoretical basis: Every stochastic-cascading influence profile can be written as a linear combination of breadth-first-search-based broadcast-propagations over layered-graphs. This graph-theoretical basis of stochastic network influence provides us with a systematic framework for studying the following fundamental question in network analysis: Our framework systematically extends a family of classical graph-theoretical centrality formulations — including degree centrality, harmonic centrality, and various notions of “sphere-of-influence” — to influence-based network centralities. Given that group cooperation is essential in social influences, we further extend natural group centralities from graph models to influence models, enabling us to assess individuals' centralities in group influence settings by applying the fundamental concept of Shapley value from cooperative game theory. Mathematically, using the property that these centrality formulations are Bayesian,3 we prove an axiomatic characterization theorem: Every influence-based centrality formulation in this family is the unique Bayesian centrality that conforms with its corresponding graph-theoretical centrality. Moreover, the uniqueness is fully determined by the centrality formulation on the class of layered graphs, which is derived from a beautiful algebraic structure of influence instances modeled by cascading sequences. We further provide an algorithmic framework for efficient approximation of these influence-based centrality measures.Our study provides us with a systematic road map for comparative analyses of different influence-based centrality formulations. The fact that layered graphs form a basis for the space of influence-cascading-sequence profiles could also be useful in other studies of network influences.

Fine-grained quantum computational supremacy

(pp1089-1115) Tomoyuki Morimae and Suguru Tamaki doi: https://doi.org/10.26421/QIC19.13-14-2 Abstracts: Output probability distributions of several sub-universal quantum computing models cannot be classically efficiently sampled unless some unlikely consequences occur in classical complexity theory, such as the collapse of the polynomial-time hierarchy. These results, so called quantum supremacy, however, do not rule out possibilities of super-polynomial-time classical simulations. In this paper, we study ``fine-grained" version of quantum supremacy that excludes some exponential-time classical simulations. First, we focus on two sub-universal models, namely, the one-clean-qubit model (or the DQC1 model) and the HC1Q model. Assuming certain conjectures in fine-grained complexity theory, we show that for any a>0 output probability distributions of these models cannot be classically sampled within a constant multiplicative error and in 2^{(1-a)N+o(N)} time, where N is the number of qubits. Next, we consider universal quantum computing. For example, we consider quantum computing over Clifford and T gates, and show that under another fine-grained complexity conjecture, output probability distributions of Clifford-T quantum computing cannot be classically sampled in 2^{o(t)} time within a constant multiplicative error, where t is the number of T gates.

Displaying trees across two phylogenetic networks

Phylogenetic networks are a generalization of phylogenetic trees to leaf-labeled directed acyclic graphs that represent ancestral relationships between species whose past includes non-tree-like events such as hybridization and horizontal gene transfer. Indeed, each phylogenetic network embeds a collection of phylogenetic trees. Referring to the collection of trees that a given phylogenetic network N embeds as the display set of N, several questions in the context of the display set of N have recently been analyzed. For example, the widely studied Tree-Containment problem asks if a given phylogenetic tree is contained in the display set of a given network. The focus of this paper are two questions that naturally arise in comparing the display sets of two phylogenetic networks. First, we analyze the problem of deciding if the display sets of two phylogenetic networks have a tree in common. Surprisingly, this problem turns out to be NP-complete even for two temporal normal networks. Second, we investigate the question of whether or not the display sets of two phylogenetic networks are equal. While we recently showed that this problem is polynomial-time solvable for a normal and a tree-child network, it is computationally hard in the general case. In establishing hardness, we show that the problem is contained in the second level of the polynomial-time hierarchy. Specifically, it is Π2P-complete. Along the way, we show that two other problems are also Π2P-complete, one of which being a generalization of Tree-Containment.

Impossibility of blind quantum sampling for classical client

Blind quantum computing enables a client, who can only generate or measure single-qubit states, to delegate quantum computing to a remote quantum server in such a way that the input, output, and program are hidden from the server. It is an open problem whether a completely classical client can delegate quantum computing blindly (in the information theoretic sense). In this paper, we show that if a completely classical client can blindly delegate sampling of subuniversal models, such as the DQC1 model and the IQP model, then the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses to the third level. Our delegation protocol is the one where the client first sends a polynomial-length bit string to the server and then the server returns a single bit to the client. Generalizing the no-go result to more general setups is an open problem.

A PSPACE Subclass of Dependency Quantified Boolean Formulas and Its Effective Solving

Dependency quantified Boolean formulas (DQBFs) are a powerful formalism, which subsumes quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs) and allows an explicit specification of dependencies of existential variables on universal variables. This enables a succinct encoding of decision problems in the NEXPTIME complexity class. As solving general DQBFs is NEXPTIME complete, in contrast to the PSPACE completeness of QBF solving, characterizing DQBF subclasses of lower computational complexity allows their effective solving and is of practical importance.Recently a DQBF proof calculus based on a notion of fork extension, in addition to resolution and universal reduction, was proposed by Rabe in 2017. We show that this calculus is in fact incomplete for general DQBFs, but complete for a subclass of DQBFs, where any two existential variables have either identical or disjoint dependency sets over the universal variables. We further characterize this DQBF subclass to be ΣP3 complete in the polynomial time hierarchy. Essentially using fork extension, a DQBF in this subclass can be converted to an equisatisfiable 3QBF with only a linear increase in formula size. We exploit this conversion for effective solving of this DQBF subclass and point out its potential as a general strategy for DQBF quantifier localization. Experimental results show that the method outperforms state-of-the-art DQBF solvers on a number of benchmarks, including the 2018 DQBF evaluation benchmarks.

Universal first-order logic is superfluous in the second level of the polynomial-time hierarchy

Abstract In this paper we prove that $\forall \textrm{FO}$, the universal fragment of first-order logic, is superfluous in $\varSigma _2^p$ and $\varPi _2^p$. As an example, we show that this yields a syntactic proof of the $\varSigma _2^p$-completeness of value-cost satisfiability. The superfluity method is interesting since it gives a way to prove completeness of problems involving numerical data such as lengths, weights and costs and it also adds to the programme started by Immerman and Medina about the syntactic approach in the study of completeness.

Merlin-Arthur with efficient quantum Merlin and quantum supremacy for the second level of the Fourier hierarchy

We introduce a simple sub-universal quantum computing model, which we call the Hadamard-classical circuit with one-qubit (HC1Q) model. It consists of a classical reversible circuit sandwiched by two layers of Hadamard gates, and therefore it is in the second level of the Fourier hierarchy. We show that output probability distributions of the HC1Q model cannot be classically efficiently sampled within a multiplicative error unless the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses to the second level. The proof technique is different from those used for previous sub-universal models, such as IQP, Boson Sampling, and DQC1, and therefore the technique itself might be useful for finding other sub-universal models that are hard to classically simulate. We also study the classical verification of quantum computing in the second level of the Fourier hierarchy. To this end, we define a promise problem, which we call the probability distribution distinguishability with maximum norm (PDD-Max). It is a promise problem to decide whether output probability distributions of two quantum circuits are far apart or close. We show that PDD-Max is BQP-complete, but if the two circuits are restricted to some types in the second level of the Fourier hierarchy, such as the HC1Q model or the IQP model, PDD-Max has a Merlin-Arthur system with quantum polynomial-time Merlin and classical probabilistic polynomial-time Arthur.

Model checking for fragments of the interval temporal logic HS at the low levels of the polynomial time hierarchy

Some temporal properties of reactive systems, such as actions with duration and temporal aggregations, which are inherently interval-based, can not be properly expressed by the standard, point-based temporal logics LTL, CTL and CTL⁎, as they give a state-by-state account of system evolution. Conversely, interval temporal logics—which feature intervals, instead of points, as their primitive entities—naturally express them.We study the model checking (MC) problem for Halpern and Shoham's modal logic of time intervals (HS), interpreted on Kripke structures, under the homogeneity assumption. HS is the best known interval-based temporal logic, which has one modality for each of the 13 ordering relations between pairs of intervals (Allen's relations), apart from equality. We focus on MC for some HS fragments featuring modalities for (a subset of) Allen's relations meet, met-by, started-by, and finished-by, showing that it is in PNP. Additionally, we provide some complexity lower bounds to the problem.

Impossibility of Classically Simulating One-Clean-Qubit Model with Multiplicative Error.

The one-clean-qubit model (or the deterministic quantum computation with one quantum bit model) is a restricted model of quantum computing where all but a single input qubits are maximally mixed. It is known that the probability distribution of measurement results on three output qubits of the one-clean-qubit model cannot be classically efficiently sampled within a constant multiplicative error unless the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses to the third level [T. Morimae, K. Fujii, and J. F. Fitzsimons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 130502 (2014)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.112.130502]. It was open whether we can keep the no-go result while reducing the number of output qubits from three to one. Here, we solve the open problem affirmatively. We also show that the third-level collapse of the polynomial-time hierarchy can be strengthened to the second-level one. The strengthening of the collapse level from the third to the second also holds for other subuniversal models such as the instantaneous quantum polynomial model [M. Bremner, R. Jozsa, and D. J. Shepherd, Proc. R. Soc. A 467, 459 (2011)PRLAAZ1364-502110.1098/rspa.2010.0301] and the boson sampling model [S. Aaronson and A. Arkhipov, STOC 2011, p.333]. We additionally study the classical simulatability of the one-clean-qubit model with further restrictions on the circuit depth or the gate types.