Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, Report No. 5 (2007) Circuit Lower Bounds for Merlin-Arthur Classes Rahul Santhanam Simon Fraser University
[email protected] January 16, 2007 Abstract We show that for each k > 0, MA/1 (MA with 1 bit of advice) doesn’t have circuits of size nk. This implies the first superlinear circuit lower bounds for the promise versions of the classes MA AM ZPPNP , and k . We extend our main result in several ways. For each k, we give an explicit language in (MA ∩ coMA)/1 which doesn’t have circuits of size nk. We also adapt our lower bound to the average-case setting, i.e., we show that MA/1 cannot be solved on more than 1/2+1/nk fraction of inputs of length n by circuits of size nk. Furthermore, we prove that MA does not have arithmetic circuits of size nk for any k. As a corollary to our main result, we obtain that derandomization of MA with O(1) advice implies the existence of pseudo-random generators computable using O(1) bits of advice. 1 Introduction Proving circuit lower bounds within uniform complexity classes is one of the most fundamental and challenging tasks in complexity theory. Apart from clarifying our understanding of the power of non-uniformity, circuit lower bounds have direct relevance to some longstanding open questions. Proving super-polynomial circuit lower bounds for NP would separate P from NP. The weaker result that for each k there is a language in NP which doesn’t have circuits of size nk would separate BPP from NEXP, thus answering an important question in the theory of derandomization.