Comparing EQP and MOD_{p^k}P using Polynomial Degree Lower Bounds

We extend the Ax-Katz theorem for a single polynomial from finite fields to the rings Z_m with m composite. This extension not only yields the analogous result, but gives significantly higher divisibility bounds. We conjecture what computer runs suggest is the optimal result for any m, and prove a special case of it. The special case is for m = 2^r and polynomials of degree 2. Our results also yield further properties of the solution spaces. Polynomials modulo composites are ...

For an odd prime $p$, we say $f(X) \in {\mathbb F}_p[X]$ computes square roots in $\mathbb F_p$ if, for all nonzero perfect squares $a \in \mathbb F_p$, we have $f(a)^2 = a$. When $p \equiv 3 \mod 4$, it is well known that $f(X) = X^{(p+1)/4}$ computes square roots. This degree is surprisingly low (and in fact lowest possible), since we have specified $(p-1)/2$ evaluations (up to sign) of the polynomial $f(X)$. On the other hand, for $p \equiv 1 \mod 4$ there was previously...

Let $N$ be a large prime and $P, Q \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ two linearly independent polynomials with $P(0) = Q(0) = 0$. We show that if a subset $A$ of $\mathbb{Z}/N\mathbb{Z}$ lacks a progression of a form of $(x, x + P(y), x + Q(y), x + P(y) + Q(y))$, then $$|A| \le O\left(\frac{N}{\log_{(O(1))}(N)}\right)$$ where $\log_{C}(N)$ is an iterated logarithm of order $C$ (e.g., $\log_{2}(N) = \log\log(N)$). To establish this bound, we adapt Peluse's (2018) degree lowering argument to ...

In this paper, for positive integers $H$ and $k \leq n$, we obtain some estimates on the cardinality of the set of monic integer polynomials of degree $n$ and height bounded by $H$ with exactly $k$ roots of maximal modulus. These include lower and upper bounds in terms of $H$ for fixed $k$ and $n$. We also count reducible and irreducible polynomials in that set separately. Our results imply, for instance, that the number of monic integer irreducible polynomials of degree $n$ ...

We study quantum algorithms that are given access to trusted and untrusted quantum witnesses. We establish strong limitations of such algorithms, via new techniques based on Laurent polynomials (i.e., polynomials with positive and negative integer exponents). Specifically, we resolve the complexity of approximate counting, the problem of multiplicatively estimating the size of a nonempty set $S \subseteq [N]$, in two natural generalizations of quantum query complexity. Our ...

In this paper, we prove tight lower bounds on the smallest degree of a nonzero polynomial in the ideal generated by $MOD_q$ or $\neg MOD_q$ in the polynomial ring $F_p[x_1, \ldots, x_n]/(x_1^2 = x_1, \ldots, x_n^2 = x_n)$, $p,q$ are coprime, which is called \emph{immunity} over $F_p$. The immunity of $MOD_q$ is lower bounded by $\lfloor (n+1)/2 \rfloor$, which is achievable when $n$ is a multiple of $2q$; the immunity of $\neg MOD_q$ is exactly $\lfloor (n+q-1)/q \rfloor$ for...

Motivated by coding applications,two enumeration problems are considered: the number of distinct divisors of a degree-m polynomial over F = GF(q), and the number of ways a polynomial can be written as a product of two polynomials of degree at most n over F. For the two problems, bounds are obtained on the maximum number of factorizations, and a characterization is presented for polynomials attaining that maximum. Finally, expressions are presented for the average and the vari...

We prove a query complexity lower bound for $\mathsf{QMA}$ protocols that solve approximate counting: estimating the size of a set given a membership oracle. This gives rise to an oracle $A$ such that $\mathsf{SBP}^A \not\subset \mathsf{QMA}^A$, resolving an open problem of Aaronson [2]. Our proof uses the polynomial method to derive a lower bound for the $\mathsf{SBQP}$ query complexity of the $\mathsf{AND}$ of two approximate counting instances. We use Laurent polynomials a...

The problem of constructing explicit functions which cannot be approximated by low degree polynomials has been extensively studied in computational complexity, motivated by applications in circuit lower bounds, pseudo-randomness, constructions of Ramsey graphs and locally decodable codes. Still, most of the known lower bounds become trivial for polynomials of super-logarithmic degree. Here, we suggest a new barrier explaining this phenomenon. We show that many of the existing...

Suppose $p$ is a prime, $t$ is a positive integer, and $f\!\in\!\mathbb{Z}[x]$ is a univariate polynomial of degree $d$ with coefficients of absolute value $<\!p^t$. We show that for any fixed $t$, we can compute the number of roots in $\mathbb{Z}/(p^t)$ of $f$ in deterministic time $(d+\log p)^{O(1)}$. This fixed parameter tractability appears to be new for $t\!\geq\!3$. A consequence for arithmetic geometry is that we can efficiently compute Igusa zeta functions $Z$, for un...