On Sharp Thresholds of Monotone Properties: Bourgain's Proof Revisited

In 1985, Razborov discovered a proof that the monotone circuit complexity of the clique problem is super-polynomial. Alon and Boppana improved the result into exponential lower bound exp(\Omega(n / \log n)^{1/3})) of a monotone circuit C to compute cliques of size (1/4) (n / log n)^{2/3}, where n is the number of vertices in a graph. Both proofs are based on the method of approximations and Erdos and Rado's sunflower lemma. There has been an interest in further generalization...

We study the limit theory of large threshold graphs and apply this to a variety of models for random threshold graphs. The results give a nice set of examples for the emerging theory of graph limits.

A detailed Monte Carlo-study of the satisfiability threshold for random 3-SAT has been undertaken. In combination with a monotonicity assumption we find that the threshold for random 3-SAT satisfies $\alpha_3 \leq 4.262$. If the assumption is correct, this means that the actual threshold value for $k=3$ is lower than that given by the cavity method. In contrast the latter has recently been shown to give the correct value for large $k$. Our result thus indicate that there are ...

We elucidate the relationship between the threshold and the expectation-threshold of a down-set. Qualitatively, our main result demonstrates that there exist down-sets with polynomial gaps between their thresholds and expectation-thresholds; in particular, the logarithmic gap predictions of Kahn--Kalai and Talagrand (recently proved by Park--Pham and Frankston--Kahn--Narayanan--Park) about up-sets do not apply to down-sets. Quantitatively, we show that any collection $\mathca...

This report presents notes from the first eight lectures of the class Many Models of Complexity taught by Laszlo Lovasz at Princeton University in the fall of 1990. The topic is evasiveness of graph properties: given a graph property, how many edges of the graph an algorithm must check in the worst case before it knows whether the property holds.

In this report, we show that all n-variable Boolean function can be represented as polynomial threshold functions (PTF) with at most $0.75 \times 2^n$ non-zero integer coefficients and give an upper bound on the absolute value of these coefficients. To our knowledge this provides the best known bound on both the PTF density (number of monomials) and weight (sum of the coefficient magnitudes) of general Boolean functions. The special case of Bent functions is also analyzed and...

Given a graph property $\Phi$, the problem $\#\mathsf{IndSub}(\Phi)$ asks, on input a graph $G$ and a positive integer $k$, to compute the number of induced subgraphs of size $k$ in $G$ that satisfy $\Phi$. The search for explicit criteria on $\Phi$ ensuring that $\#\mathsf{IndSub}(\Phi)$ is hard was initiated by Jerrum and Meeks [J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 15] and is part of the major line of research on counting small patterns in graphs. However, apart from an implicit result du...

We present a sharp extension of a result of Bourgain on finding configurations of $k+1$ points in general position in measurable subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$ of positive upper density whenever $d\geq k+1$ to all proper $k$-degenerate distance graphs.

In this paper we present a graph property with sensitivity $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$, where $n={v\choose2}$ is the number of variables, and generalize it to a $k$-uniform hypergraph property with sensitivity $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$, where $n={v\choose k}$ is again the number of variables. This yields the smallest sensitivity yet achieved for a $k$-uniform hypergraph property. We then show that, for even $k$, there is a $k$-uniform hypergraph property that demonstrates a quadratic gap bet...

Let $1 \leq k \leq n$ be a positive integer. A {\em nonnegative signed $k$-subdominating function} is a function $f:V(G) \rightarrow \{-1,1\}$ satisfying $\sum_{u\in N_G[v]}f(u) \geq 0$ for at least $k$ vertices $v$ of $G$. The value $\min\sum_{v\in V(G)} f(v)$, taking over all nonnegative signed $k$-subdominating functions $f$ of $G$, is called the {\em nonnegative signed $k$-subdomination number} of $G$ and denoted by $\gamma^{NN}_{ks}(G)$. When $k=|V(G)|$, $\gamma^{NN}_{ks...