Abstract
Let (k,s)-SAT refer the family of satisfiability problems restricted to CNF formulas with exactly k distinct literals per clause and at most s occurrences of each variable. Kratochvíl, Savický and Tuza [6] show that there exists a function f(k) such that for all s ≤ f(k), all (k,s)-SAT instances are satisfiable whereas for k ≥ 3 and s > f(k), (k,s)-SAT is NP-complete. We define a new function u(k) as the minimum s such that uniquely satisfiable (k,s)-SAT formulas exist. We show that for k ≥ 3, unique solutions and NP-hardness occur at almost the same value of s: f(k) ≤ u(k) ≤ f(k) + 2.
We also give a parsimonious reduction from SAT to (k,s)-SAT for any k ≥ 3 and s ≥ f(k) + 2. When combined with the Valiant–Vazirani Theorem [8], this gives a randomized polynomial time reduction from SAT to UNIQUE-(k,s)-SAT.
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Matthews, W., Paturi, R. (2010). Uniquely Satisfiable k-SAT Instances with Almost Minimal Occurrences of Each Variable. In: Strichman, O., Szeider, S. (eds) Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing – SAT 2010. SAT 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6175. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14186-7_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14186-7_34
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