Arithmetic Circuits and Identity Testing
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A§±u±h C§h¶±« Zo Iou±±í Tu«± + × × × + + + + + + xý xÔ xò ;amprasad >aptharishi ARITHMETIC CIRCUITS AND IDENTITY TESTING Thesis submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Computer Science by Ramprasad Saptharishi Chennai Mathematical Institute Plot HÔ SIPCOT IT Park Padur PO, Siruseri âýç Ôýç May 2009 Abstract We study the problem of polynomial identity testing (PIT) in arithmetic circuits. is is a fundamental problem in computational algebra and has been very well studied in the past few decades. Despite many eorts, a deterministic polynomial time algorithm is known only for restricted circuits of depth ç. A recent result of Agrawal and Vinay show that PIT for depth ¥ circuit is almost as hard as the general case, and hence explains why there is no progress beyond depth ç. e main contribution of this thesis is a new approach to designing a polynomial time algorithm for depth ç circuits. We rst provide the background and related results to motivate the problem. We dis- cuss the connections of PIT with arithmetic circuit lower bounds, and also briey the re- sults in depth reduction. We then look at the deterministic algorithms for PIT on restricted circuits. We then proceed to the main contribution of the thesis which studies the power of arithmetic circuits over higher dimensional algebras. We consider the model of ΠΣ circuits over the algebra of upper-triangular matrices and show that PIT in this model is equivalent to identity testing of depth three circuits over elds. Further we also show that ΠΣ circuits over upper-triangular matrices is computationally very weak. In the case when the underlying algebra is a constant dimensional commutative alge- bra, we present a polynomial time algorithm. PITs on arbitrary dimensional commutative algebras, however, are as hard as PIT on depth ç circuits. us ΣΠ circuits over upper-triangular matrices, the smallest non-commutative alge- bra, captures PIT on depth ç circuits. We hope that ideas used in the commutative case would be useful to design a polynomial time identity test for depth ç circuits. Acknowledgements I’dlike to thank my advisor Manindra Agrawal for giving me absolute freedom regard- ing the contents of this thesis and otherwise. is independence helped me mull over the subject more and hence understand it better. Most of the work over the last two years were done at IIT Kanpur. Manindra has been extremely helpful in arranging accommodation, despite severe shortage in hostel space. e faculty and students at IITK have been very friendly. I greatly beneted from various discussions with faculty like Piyush Kurur, Somenath Biswas, Sumit Ganguly, Shashank Mehta, and all SIGTACS members. Chandan Saha, in particular, has been subjected to numerous hours of discussion, besides other torture, by me over the last two years. I’m very grateful to him, and Nitin Saxena, for having me a part of their work. I’m deeply indebted to Chennai Mathematical Institute and the Institute of Mathemat- ical Sciences for a truly wonderful undergraduate course. My sincere thanks Madhavan Mukund, Narayan Kumar and V Vinay, who were instrumental in my decision to join CMI. My interaction with Samir Dutta, V Arvind and Meena Mahajan were also a great inspiration to make me work in complexity theory and computational algebra. S P Suresh (LKG) introduced me to logic. anks to him for enlightening discussions on research(!), also for helping me get these lovely fonts (Minion Pro and Myriad Pro (for sans-serif)) for LaTeX. Besides excellent professors, CMI is endowed with a very ecient and aable oce sta as well. Sripathy, Vijayalakshi and Rajeshwari (a.k.a Goach) do a spectacular job at administration. I’m very grateful to them for a completely hassle free stay at CMI. anks to V Vinay for — well everything. He has been my primary motivation to do mathematics and theoretical computer science. My salutations to him, and to my aunt Subhashini, for countless pieces of advice over all these years. Salutations to my father, L C Saptharishi for giving me complete liberty in whatever I do. He is, by far, the one who is proudest of what I am. My humble namaskarams to him, and everyone at home — amma, pati, thatha; my sister Kamakshi gets a not-an-elder version of a namaskaram. Since it would be very dicult to make the list exhaustive, let me just thank everyone that need be thanked. Contents Ô IntroductionÔ Ô.Ô Problem denition.................................ç Ô.ò Current Status....................................¥ Ô.ç Circuits over algebras................................â Ô.¥ Contributions of the thesis.............................Þ Ô.¥.Ô Identity testing...............................Þ Ô.¥.ò Weakness of the depth ò model over Uò(F) and Mò(F) ....... Ô. Organization of the thesis.............................À ò Randomized Algorithms for PITÔÔ ò.Ô e Schwarz-Zippel test..............................ÔÔ ò.ò Chen-Kao: Evaluating at irrationals....................... Ôò ò.ò.Ô Algebraically d-independent numbers................. Ôò ò.ò.ò Introducing randomness......................... Ôç ò.ò.ç Chen-Kao over nite elds........................ Ôç ò.ç Agrawal-Biswas: Chinese Remaindering..................... Ô¥ ò.ç.Ô Univariate substitution.......................... Ô¥ ò.ç.ò Polynomials sharing few factors..................... Ô ò.¥ Klivans-Spielman: Random univariate substitution.............. Ôâ ò.¥.Ô Reduction to univariate polynomials.................. Ô ò.¥.ò Degree reduction (a sketch)....................... ÔÀ ç Deterministic Algorithms for PIT òÔ ç.Ô e Kayal-Saxena test................................ òò ç.Ô.Ô e idea................................... òò ç.Ô.ò Local Rings................................. òç ç.Ô.ç e identity test.............................. ò¥ vi Contents ç.ò Rank bounds and ΣΠΣ(n, k, d) circuits..................... òâ ç.ò.Ô Rank bounds to black-box PITs..................... ò ç.ç Saxena’s test for diagonal circuits......................... òÀ ¥ Chasm at Depth ¥ çÔ ¥.Ô Reduction to depth O(log d) ........................... çÔ ¥.Ô.Ô Computing degrees............................ çò ¥.Ô.ò Evaluation through proof trees..................... çò ¥.ò Reduction to depth ¥................................ ç¥ ¥.ç Identity testing for depth ¥ circuits........................ ç¥ ¥.ç.Ô Hardness vs randomness in arithmetic circuits............ ç Depth ò Circuits Over Algebras çÀ .Ô Equivalence of PIT with ΣΠΣ circuits...................... çÀ .Ô.Ô Width-ò algebraic branching programs................. ¥Ô .ò Identity testing over commutative algebras................... ¥ç .ç Weakness of the depth ò model.......................... ¥Þ .ç.Ô Depth ò model over Uò(F) ........................ ¥Þ .ç.ò Depth ò model over Mò(F) ....................... ¥À â Conclusion ç Introduction Ô e interplay between mathematics and computer science demands algorithmic approaches to various algebraic constructions. e area of computational algebra addresses precisely this. e most fundamental objects in algebra are polynomials and it is natural to desire a classication based on their “simplicity”. e algorithmic approach suggests that the simple polynomials are those that can be computed easily. e ease of computation is measured in terms of the number of arithmetic operations required to compute the polynomial. is yields a very robust denition of simple (and hard) polynomials that can be studied ana- lytically. It is worth remarking that the number of terms in a polynomial is not a good measure of its simplicity. For example, consider the polynomials fÔ(xÔ, ⋯, xn) = (Ô + xÔ)(Ô + xò)⋯(Ô + xn) fò(xÔ, ⋯, xn) = (Ô + xÔ)(Ô + xò)⋯(Ô + xn) − xÔ − xò − ⋯ − xn. e former has n more terms than the later, however, the former is easier to describe as well as compute. We use arithmetic circuits (formally dened in the Section Ô.Ô) to represent the compu- tation of a polynomial. is also allows us to count the number of operations required in computation. A few examples are the following: ò ò (xÔ + xò) (xÔ + xò) (Ô + xÔ)(Ô + xò)⋯(Ô + xn) + × × ò × × × + + + ⋯ + xÔ xò xÔ xò Ô xÔ xò ⋯ xn Example Ô Example ò Example ç ò Chapter Ô. Introduction e complexity of a given polynomial is dened as the size (the number of operations) of the smallest arithmetic circuit that computes the polynomial. With this denition, how do we classify “simple” polynomials? For this, we need to de- ne the intuitive notion of “polynomials that can be computed easily”. Following standard ideas from computer science, we call any polynomial that can be computed using at most nO(Ô) operations an easy polynomial. Strictly speaking, this denition applied to an innite family of polynomials over n variables, one for each n, as otherwise every polynomial can be computed using O(Ô) operations rendering the whole exercise meaningless. However, oen we will omit to explicitly mention the innite family to which a polynomial belongs when talking about its complexity; the family would be obvious. e class VP is the class of low degreeÔ polynomial families that are easy in the above sense. e polynomials in VP are essentially represented by the determinant polynomial: the determinant of an n × n matrix whose entries are ane linear combinations of vari- ables. It is known that determinant polynomial belongs to the class VP [Sam¥ò, Ber¥, Chi , MVÀÞ] and any polynomial in VP over n variables can be written as a determinant polynomial of a m × m matrix with m = nO(log n) [TodÀÔ]. is provides a excellent classication of easy polynomials. Hence, any polynomial that cannot be written