Abstract
We introduce a new class \(\rm {O}^p_2\) as a subclass of the symmetric alternation class \(\rm {S}^p_2\). An \(\rm {O}^p_2\) proof system has the flavor of an \(\rm {S}^p_2\) proof system, but it is more restrictive in nature. In an \(\rm {S}^p_2\) proof system, we have two competing provers and a verifier such that for any input, the honest prover has an irrefutable certificate. In an \(\rm {O}^p_2\) proof system, we require that the irrefutable certificates depend only on the length of the input, not on the input itself. In other words, the irrefutable proofs are oblivious of the input. For this reason, we call the new class oblivious symmetric alternation. While this might seem slightly contrived, it turns out that this class helps us improve some existing results. For instance, we show that if NP ⊂ P/poly then \(\rm PH = {O}^p_2\), whereas the best known collapse under the same hypothesis was \(\rm PH = {S}^p_2\).
We also define classes \(\rm Y{O}^p_2\) and \(\rm N{O}^p_2\), bearing relations to \(\rm {O}^p_2\) as NP and coNP are to P, and show that these along with \(\rm {O}^p_2\) form a hierarchy, similar to the polynomial hierarchy. We investigate other inclusions involving these classes and strengthen some known results. For example, we show that \(\rm MA \subseteq N{O}^p_2\) which sharpens the known result \(\rm MA \subseteq {S}^p_2\) [16]. Another example is our result that \(\rm AM \subseteq O_2 \cdot NP \subseteq {\prod}^p_2\), which is an improved upper bound on AM. Finally, we also prove better collapses for the 2-queries problem as discussed by [12,1,7]. We prove that \(\rm P^{NP[1]} = P^{NP[2]} \Longrightarrow PH = {NO}^p_2 \cap Y{O}^p_2\).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Buhrman, H., Fortnow, L.: Two queries. Journal of Computer and System Sciences 59(2) (1999)
Buhrman, H., Fortnow, L., Thierauf, T.: Nonrelativizing separations. In: CCC (1998)
Cai, J.: \(\rm {S}_2^{\it p} \subseteq {ZPP}^{{NP}}\). In: FOCS (2001)
Cai, J., Chakaravarthy, V., Hemaspaandra, L., Ogihara, M.: Competing provers yield improved Karp–Lipton collapse results. In: Alt, H., Habib, M. (eds.) STACS 2003. LNCS, vol. 2607, pp. 535–546. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Canetti, R.: More on BPP and the polynomial-time hierarchy. Information Processing Letters 57(5), 237–241 (1996)
Fortnow, L., Impagliazzo, R., Kabanets, V., Umans, C.: On the complexity of succinct zero-sum games. In: CCC (2005)
Fortnow, L., Pavan, A., Sengupta, S.: Proving SAT does not have small circuits with an application to the two queries problem. In: CCC (2003)
Goldreich, O. Zuckerman, D.: Another proof that BPP ⊆ PH (and more). Technical Report TR97–045, ECCC (1997)
Hemaspaandra, E., Hemaspaandra, L., Hempel, H.: What’s up with downward collapse: Using the easy-hard technique to link boolean and polynomial hierarchy collapses. Technical Report TR-682, University of Rochester (1998)
Arvind, V., Köbler, J., Schuler, R.: On Helping and Interactive Proof Systems. International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science 6(2), 137–153 (1995)
Kabanets, V., Impagliazzo, R.: Derandomizing polynomial identity tests means proving circuit lower bounds. In: STOC (2003)
Kadin, J.: The polynomial time hierarchy collapses if the boolean hierarchy collapses. SIAM Journal on Computing 17(6), 1263–1282 (1988)
Kannan, R.: Circuit-size lower bounds and non-reducibility to sparse sets. Information and Control 55, 40–56 (1982)
Karp, R., Lipton, R.: Some connections between nonuniform and uniform complexity classes. In: STOC (1980)
Köbler, J., Watanabe, O.: New collapse consequences of NP having small circuits. SIAM Journal on Computing 28(1), 311–324 (1998)
Russell, A., Sundaram, R.: Symmetric alternation captures BPP. Computational Complexity 7(2), 152–162 (1998)
Selman, A., Sengupta, S.: Polylogarithmic-round interactive protocols for coNP collapse the exponential hierarchy. In: CCC (2004)
Shaltiel, R., Umans, C.: Pseudorandomness for approximate counting and sampling. In: CCC (2005)
Yap, C.: Some consequences of non-uniform conditions on uniform classes. Theoretical Computer Science 26(3), 287–300 (1983)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Chakaravarthy, V.T., Roy, S. (2006). Oblivious Symmetric Alternation. In: Durand, B., Thomas, W. (eds) STACS 2006. STACS 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3884. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11672142_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11672142_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-32301-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32288-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)