School of Technology and Computer Science Seminars

On Polynomial Approximations to AC0

by Prahladh Harsha (School of Technology and Computer Science, TIFR)

Tuesday, August 30, 2016 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at A-201 (STCS Seminar Room)
Description
In this talk, we will survey questions related to polynomial approximations of AC0. A classic result due to Tarui (1991) and Beigel, Reingold, and Spielman (1991), that any AC0 circuit of size s and depth d has an ε-error probabilistic polynomial over the reals of degree (log(s/ε))^{O(d)}. We will have a re-look at this construction and show how to improve the bound to (log s)^{O(d)}⋅log(1/ε), which is much better for small values of ε.

As an application of this result, we show that (log s)^{O(d)}⋅log(1/ε)-wise independence fools AC0, improving on Tal's strengthening of Braverman's theorem that (log(s/ε))^{O(d)}-wise independence fools AC0. Time permitting, we will also discuss some lower bounds on the best polynomial approximations to AC0 (joint work with Srikanth Srinivasan).