Skip to main content

Short Locally Testable Codes and Proofs

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 6650))

Abstract

We survey known results regarding locally testable codes and locally testable proofs (known as PCPs), with emphasis on the length of these constructs. Local testability refers to approximately testing large objects based on a very small number of probes, each retrieving a single bit in the representation of the object. This yields super-fast approximate-testing of the corresponding property (i.e., be a codeword or a valid proof). We also review the related concept of local decodable codes.

The survey consists of two independent (i.e., self-contained) parts that cover the same material at different levels of rigor and detail. Still, in spite of the repetitions, there may be a benefit in reading both parts.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Alon, N., Kaufman, T., Krivelevich, M., Litsyn, S.N., Ron, D.: Testing low-degree polynomials over GF(2). In: Arora, S., Jansen, K., Rolim, J.D.P., Sahai, A. (eds.) RANDOM 2003 and APPROX 2003. LNCS, vol. 2764, pp. 188–199. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ambainis, A.: An upper bound on the communication complexity of private information retrieval. In: Degano, P., Gorrieri, R., Marchetti-Spaccamela, A. (eds.) ICALP 1997. LNCS, vol. 1256, pp. 401–407. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Arora, S.: Probabilistic checking of proofs and the hardness of approximation problems. PhD thesis, UC Berkeley (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Arora, S., Lund, C., Motwani, R., Sudan, M., Szegedy, M.: Proof verification and the hardness of approximation problems. JACM 45,3, 501–555 (1998); Preliminary Version in 33rd FOCS, 1992

    Google Scholar 

  5. Arora, S., Safra, S.: Probabilistic checking of proofs: A new characterization of NP. JACM 45(1), 70–122 (1998): Preliminary Version in 33rd FOCS 1992

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Babai, L., Fortnow, L., Lund, C.: Non-deterministic exponential time has two-prover interactive protocols. Computational Complexity 1(1), 3–40 (1991)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Babai, L., Fortnow, L., Levin, L.A., Szegedy, M.: Checking computations in polylogarithmic time. In: Proc. 23rd ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing, pp. 21–31. D, F (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Barak, B.: How to go beyond the black-box simulation barrier. In: Proc. 42nd IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science , pp. 106–115 (October 2001)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Beimel, A., Ishai, Y., Kushilevitz, E., Raymond, J.F.: Breaking the O(n 1/(2k − 1)) barrier for information-theoretic private information retrieval. In: Proc. 43rd FOCS, pp. 261–270 (November 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Bellare, M., Coppersmith, D., Håstad, J., Kiwi, M., Sudan, M.: Linearity testing in characteristic two. In: Proceedings of the 36th FOCS, pp. 432–441 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Bellare, M., Goldreich, O., Sudan, M.: Free bits, PCPs, and nonapproximability—towards tight results. In: SICOMP, vol. 27, 3, pp. 804–915 (1998); Preliminary Version in 36th FOCS 1995

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bellare, M., Goldwasser, S., Lund, C., Russell, A.: Efficient probabilistically checkable proofs and applications to approximation. In: Proc. 25th STOC, pp. 294–304 (May 1993)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Bellare, M., Sudan, M.: Improved non-approximability results. In: Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing, pp. 184–193 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Ben-Sasson, E., Goldreich, O., Sudan, M.: Bounds on 2-Query Codeword Testing. In: Arora, S., Jansen, K., Rolim, J.D.P., Sahai, A. (eds.) RANDOM 2003 and APPROX 2003. LNCS, vol. 2764, pp. 216–227. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Ben-Sasson, E., Goldreich, O., Harsha, P., Sudan, M., Vadhan, S.: Robust PCPs of proximity, shorter PCPs and applications to coding. In: Proc. 36th STOC, pp. 1–10 (June 2004); See ECCC Technical Report TR04-021, March 2004

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ben-Sasson, E., Goldreich, O., Harsha, P., Sudan, M., Vadhan, S.: Short PCPs verifiable in polylogarithmic time. In: 20th IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, pp. 120–134 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Ben-Sasson, E., Guruswami, V., Kaufman, T., Sudan, M., Viderman, M.: Locally testable codes require redundant testers. In: IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, pp. 52–61 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ben-Sasson, E., Harsha, P., Raskhodnikova, S.: Some 3CNF properties are hard to test. In: Proc. 35th STOC, pp. 345–354. s, f (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Ben-Sasson, E., Sudan, M.: Robust Locally Testable Codes and Products of Codes. In: Jansen, K., Khanna, S., Rolim, J.D.P., Ron, D. (eds.) RANDOM 2004 and APPROX 2004. LNCS, vol. 3122, pp. 286–297. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  20. Ben-Sasson, E., Sudan, M.: Short PCPs with polylog query complexity. In: SICOMP, vol. 38(2), pp. 551–607 (2008); Preliminary Version in 37th STOC 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Ben-Sasson, E., Sudan, M., Vadhan, S., Wigderson, A.: Randomness-efficient low degree tests and short PCPs via epsilon-biased sets. In: Proc. 35th STOC, pp. 612–621 (June 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  22. M. Blum, M. Luby, and R. Rubinfeld. Self-testing/correcting with applications to numerical problems. JCSS 47, 3 (December 1993), 549–595. (Preliminary Version in 22nd STOC, 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  23. Buhrman, H., de Wolf, R.: On relaxed locally decodable codes(July 2004) Unpublished manuscript

    Google Scholar 

  24. Canetti, R., Goldreich, O., Halevi, S.: The random oracle methodology. In: Proc. 30th STOC, pp. 209–218 (May 1998) (revisited)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Chor, B., Goldreich, O., Kushilevitz, E., Sudan, M.: Private Information Retrieval. Journal of the ACM 45(6), 965–982 (1998)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  26. Dinur, I.: The PCP theorem by gap amplification. JACM 54(3) Art. 12 (2007); Extended abstract in 38th STOC 2006

    Google Scholar 

  27. Dinur, I., Harsha, P.: Composition of low-error 2-query PCPs using decodable PCPs. In: 50th FOCS, pp. 472–481 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Dinur, I., Reingold, O.: Assignment-testers: Towards a combinatorial proof of the PCP-Theorem. SICOMP 36(4), 975–1024 (2006); Extended abstract in 45th FOCS 2004

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. Efremenko, K.: 3-query locally decodable codes of subexponential length. In: 41st STOC, pp. 39–44 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Ergün, F., Kumar, R., Rubinfeld, R.: Fast approximate PCPs. In: Proc. 31st STOC, pp. 41–50 (May 1999)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Feige, U., Goldwasser, S., Lovász, L., Safra, S., Szegedy, M.: Interactive proofs and the hardness of approximating cliques. JACM 43(2), 268–292 (1996); Preliminary version in 32nd FOCS 1991

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  32. Forney, G.D.: Concatenated Codes. MIT Press, Cambridge (1966)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  33. Fortnow, L., Rompel, J., Sipser, M.: On the power of multi-prover interactive protocols. Theoretical Computer Science 134, 2, 545–557 (November 1994)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  34. Friedl, K., Sudan, M.: Some improvements to total degree tests. In: Proc. 3rd Israel Symposium on Theoretical and Computing Systems, Tel Aviv, Israel, January 4–6, pp. 190–198 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Gemmell, P., Lipton, R., Rubinfeld, R., Sudan, M., Wigderson, A.: Self-testing/correcting for polynomials and for approximate functions. In: Proc. 23rd STOC, pp. 32–42 (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Goldreich, O.: Short locally testable codes and proofs (survey). ECCC Technical Report TR05-014 (January 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Goldreich, O.: Computational Complexity: A Conceptual Perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2008)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  38. Newman, I.: Property testing of massively parametrized problems - A survey. In: Goldreich, O. (ed.) Property Testing. LNCS, vol. 6390, pp. 142–157. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  39. Goldreich, O., Goldwasser, S., Ron, D.: Property testing and its connection to learning and approximation. JACM 45(4), 653–750 (1998); Preliminary Version in 37th FOCS 1996

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  40. Goldreich, O., Ron, D.: On proximity oblivious testing. ECCC, TR08-041, 2008. Also in the proceedings of the 41st STOC (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Goldreich, O., Karloff, H., Schulman, L., Trevisan, L.: Lower bounds for linear locally decodable codes and private information retrieval. In: Proc. 17th Conference on Computational Complexity, Montréal, Québec, Canada, May 21–24, pp. 175–183 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Goldreich, O., Sudan, M.: Locally testable codes and PCPs of almost linear length. In: Proc.43rd FOCS, pp. 13–22 (November 2002); See ECCC Report TR02-050 2002

    Google Scholar 

  43. Harsha, P., Sudan, M.: Small PCPs with low query complexity. Computational Complexity 9 (3–4), 157–201 (2001); Preliminary Version in 18th STACS 2001

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  44. Håstad, J.: Clique is hard to approximate within n 1 − ε. Acta Mathematica 182, 105–142 (1999); Preliminary Versions in 28th STOC 1996 and 37th FOCS 1997

    Google Scholar 

  45. Håstad, J.: Some optimal inapproximability results. Journal of the ACM 48(4), 798–859 (2001); Preliminary Version in 29th STOC 1997

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  46. Katz, J., Trevisan, L.: On the efficiency of local decoding procedures for error-correcting codes. In: Proc. 32nd STOC, pp. 80–86 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  47. Kaufman, T., Litsyn, S., Xie, N.: Breaking the ε-soundness bound of the linearity test over GF(2). SICOMP 39(5), 1988–2003 (2009)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  48. Kerenidis, I., de Wolf, R.: Exponential lower bound for 2-query locally decodable codes via a quantum argument. In: Proc. 35th STOC, pp. 106–115 (June 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  49. Kilian, J.: A note on efficient zero-knowledge proofs and arguments (extended abstract). In: Proc. 24th STOC, pp. 723–732 (May 1992)

    Google Scholar 

  50. Lapidot, D., Shamir, A.: Fully parallelized multi prover protocols for NEXP-time (extended abstract). In: Proc. 32nd FOCS, pp. 13–18 (October 1991)

    Google Scholar 

  51. Lund, C., Fortnow, L., Karloff, H., Nisan, N.: Algebraic methods for interactive proof systems. JACM 39(4), 859–868 (1992)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  52. Meir, O.: Combinatorial construction of locally testable codes. SICOMP 39(2), 491–544 (2009); Extended abstrat in 40th STOC 2008

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  53. Meir, O.: Combinatorial PCPs with efficient verifiers. In: 50th FOCS, pp. 463–471 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  54. Micali, S.: Computationally sound proofs. SICOMP 30(4), 1253–1298 (2000); Preliminary Version in 35th FOCS 1994

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  55. Moshkovitz, D., Raz, R.: Two query PCP with sub-constant error. In: 49th FOCS, pp. 314–323 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  56. Polishchuk, A., Spielman, D.A.: Nearly-linear size holographic proofs. In: Proc. 26th STOC, pp. 194–203 (May 1994)

    Google Scholar 

  57. Raz, R.: A parallel repetition theorem. SIAM Journal of Computing 27(3), 763–803 (1998); Preliminary Version in 27th STOC 1995

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  58. Rubinfeld, R., Sudan, M.: Robust characterizations of polynomials with applications to program testing. SICOMP 25(2), 252–271 (1996); Preliminary Version in 3rd SODA 1992

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  59. Spielman, D.: Computationally efficient error-correcting codes and holographic proofs. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (June 1995)

    Google Scholar 

  60. Sudan, M.: Efficient Checking of Polynomials and Proofs and the Hardness of Approximation Problems. LNCS, vol. 1001. Springer, Heidelberg (1995)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  61. Szegedy, M.: Many-valued logics and holographic proofs. In: Wiedermann, J., Van Emde Boas, P., Nielsen, M. (eds.) ICALP 1999. LNCS, vol. 1644, pp. 676–686. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  62. Yekhanin, S.: Towards 3-Query locally decodable codes of subexponential length. In: 39th STOC, pp. 266–274 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Goldreich, O. (2011). Short Locally Testable Codes and Proofs. In: Goldreich, O. (eds) Studies in Complexity and Cryptography. Miscellanea on the Interplay between Randomness and Computation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6650. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22670-0_25

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22670-0_25

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22669-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22670-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics