We show new tradeoffs for satisfiability and nondeterministic linear time. Satisfiability cannot be solved on general purpose random-access Turing machines in time n 1.618 and space n o(1) . This improves recent results of Fortnow and of Lipton and Viglas. In general, for any constant a less than the golden ratio, we prove that satisfiability cannot be solved in time n a and space n b for some positive constant b. Our techniques allow us to establish this result for b < 1 2 ( a+2 a 2 - a). We can do better for a close to the golden ratio, for example, satisfiability cannot be solved by a random-access Turing machine using n 1.46 time and n .11 space. We also show tradeoffs for nondeterministic linear time computations using sublinear space. For example, there exists a language computable in nondeterministic linear time and n .619 space that cannot be computed in deterministic n 1.618 time and n o(1) space. Higher up the polynomial-time hierarchy we can get be...

We establish the first polynomial time-space lower bounds for satisfiability on general models of computation. We show that for any constant c less than the golden ratio there exists a positive constant d such that no deterministic random-access Turing machine can solve satisfiability in time n c and space n d, where d approaches 1 when c does. On conondeterministic instead of deterministic machines, we prove the same for any constant c less than √ 2. Our lower bounds apply to nondeterministic linear time and almost all natural NP-complete problems known. In fact, they even apply to the class of languages that can be solved on a nondeterministic machine in linear time and space n 1/c. Our proofs follow the paradigm of indirect diagonalization. We also use that paradigm to prove time-space lower bounds for languages higher up in the polynomial-time hierarchy.

We extend the lower bound techniques of [14], to the unbounded-error probabilistic model. A key step in the argument is a generalization of Nepomnjasci's theorem from the Boolean setting to the arithmetic setting. This generalization is made possible, due to the recent discovery of logspace-uniform TC 0 circuits for iterated multiplication [9]. Here is an

We establish the first polynomial-strength time-space lower bounds for problems in the lineartime hierarchy on randomized machines with two-sided error. We show that for any integer ℓ> 1 and constant c < ℓ, there exists a positive constant d such that QSAT ℓ cannot be computed by such machines in time n c and space n d, where QSAT ℓ denotes the problem of deciding the validity of a quantified Boolean formula with at most ℓ − 1 quantifier alternations. Moreover, d approaches 1/2 from below as c approaches 1 from above for ℓ = 2, and d approaches 1 from below as c approaches 1 from above for ℓ ≥ 3. In fact, we establish the stronger result that for any constants a ≤ 1 and c < 1+(ℓ −1)a, there exists a positive constant d such that linear-time alternating machines using space n a and ℓ − 1 alternations cannot be simulated by randomized machines with two-sided error running in time n c and space n d, where d approaches a/2 from below as c approaches 1 from above for ℓ = 2 and d approaches a from below as c approaches 1 from above for ℓ ≥ 3. Corresponding to ℓ = 1, we prove that there exists a positive constant d such that the set of Boolean tautologies cannot be decided by a randomized machine with one-sided error in time n 1.759 and space n d. As a corollary, this gives the same lower bound for satisfiability on deterministic machines, improving on the previously best known such result. 1

Ever since the fundamental work of Cook from 1971, satisfiability has been recognized as a central problem in computational complexity. It is widely believed to be intractable, and yet till recently even a linear-time, logarithmic-space algorithm for satisfiability was not ruled out. In 1997 Fortnow, building on earlier work by Kannan, ruled out such an algorithm. Since then there has been a significant amount of progress giving non-trivial lower bounds on the computational complexity of satisfiability. In this article we survey the known lower bounds for the time and space complexity of satisfiability and closely related problems on deterministic, randomized, and quantum models with random access. We discuss the state-of-the-art results and present the underlying arguments in a unified framework. 1

Abstract. We improve upon indirect diagonalization arguments for lower bounds on explicit problems within the polynomial hierarchy. Our contributions are summarized as follows. 1. We present a technique that uniformly improves upon most known nonlinear time lower bounds for nondeterminism andalternating computation, on both subpolynomial (n o(1) ) space RAMs and sequential one-tape machines with random access to the input. We obtain improved lower bounds for Boolean satisfiability (SAT), as well as all NP-complete problems that have efficient reductions from SAT, and Σk-SAT, for constant k ≥ 2. For example, SAT cannot be solved by random access machines using n √ 3 time and subpolynomial space. 2. We show how indirect diagonalization leads to time-space lower bounds for computation with bounded nondeterminism. For both the random access and multitape Turing machine models, we prove that for all k ≥ 1, there is a constant ck> 1 such that linear time with n 1/k nondeterministic bits is not contained in deterministic n ck time with subpolynomial space. This is used to prove that satisfiability of Boolean circuits with n inputs and n k size cannot be solved by deterministic multitape Turing machines running in n k·ck time and subpolynomial space.

We show that the known bounded-depth proofs of the Weak Pigeonhole Principle PHP 2n n in size n O(log(n)) are not optimal in terms of size. More precisely, we give a size-depth trade-off upper bound: there are proofs of size n O(d(log(n)) 2=d ) and depth O(d). This solves an open problem of Maciel, Pitassi and Woods (2000). Our technique requires formalizing the ideas underlying Nepomnjascij's Theorem which might be of independent interest. Moreover, our result implies a proof of the unboundedness of primes in I \Delta 0 with a provably weaker `large number assumption' than previously needed.

We prove the first time-space tradeoffs for counting the number of solutions to an NP problem modulo small integers, and also improve upon known time-space tradeoffs for Sat. Let m> 0 be an integer, and define MODm-Sat to be the problem of determining if a given Boolean formula has exactly km satisfying assignments, for some integer k. We show for all primes p except for possibly one of them, and for all c < 2cos(π/7) ≈ 1.801, there is a d> 0 such that MODp-Sat is not solvable in n c time and n d space by general algorithms. That is, there is at most one prime p that does not satisfy the tradeoff. We prove that the same limitation holds for Sat and MOD6-Sat, as well as MODm-Sat for any composite m that is not a prime power. Our main tool is a general method for rapidly simulating deterministic computations with restricted space, by counting the number of solutions to NP predicates modulo integers. The simulation converts an ordinary algorithm into a “canonical ” one that consumes roughly the same amount of time and space, yet canonical algorithms have nice properties suitable for counting.

no. DGE-0234630. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of any sponsoring institution, the U.S. government or any other entity.

Abstract. We show that a deterministic Turing machine with one ddimensional work tape and random access to the input cannot solve satisfiability in time na for a < p(d + 2)/(d + 1). For conondeterministic machines, we obtain a similar lower bound for any a such that a3 < 1 + a/(d + 1). The same bounds apply to almost all natural NP-complete problems known. 1 Introduction Proving time lower bounds for natural problems remains the most difficultchallenge in computational complexity. We know exponential lower bounds on severely restricted models of computation (e.g., for parity on constant depthcircuits) and polynomial lower bounds on somewhat restricted models (e.g., for palindromes on single tape Turing machines) but no nontrivial lower bounds ongeneral random-access machines. In this paper, we exploit the recent time-space lower bounds for satisfiability on general random-access machines to establishnew lower bounds of the second type, namely a time lower bound for satisfiability on Turing machines with one multidimensional work tape and random accessto the input.