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BPP has subexponential time simulations unlessEXPTIME has publishable proofs

  • Published: December 1993
  • Volume 3, pages 307–318 (1993)
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BPP has subexponential time simulations unlessEXPTIME has publishable proofs
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  • Lźszló Babai1,
  • Lance Fortnow1,
  • Noam Nisan2 &
  • …
  • Avi Wigderson2 
  • 471 Accesses

  • 228 Citations

  • 351 Altmetric

  • 48 Mentions

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Abstract

We show thatBPP can be simulated in subexponential time for infinitely many input lengths unless exponential time

  • â„´ collapses to the second level of the polynomial-time hierarchy.

  • â„´ has polynomial-size circuits and

  • â„´ has publishable proofs (EXPTIME=MA).

We also show thatBPP is contained in subexponential time unless exponential time has publishable proofs for infinitely many input lengths. In addition, we showBPP can be simulated in subexponential time for infinitely many input lengths unless there exist unary languages inMA-P.

The proofs are based on the recent characterization of the power of multiprover interactive protocols and on random self-reducibility via low-degree polynomials. They exhibit an interplay between Boolean circuit simulation, interactive proofs and classical complexity classes. An important feature of this proof is that it does not relativize.

One of the ingredients of our proof is a lemma that states that ifEXPTIME has polynomial size circuits thenEXPTIME=MA. This extends previous work by Albert Meyer.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA

    Lźszló Babai & Lance Fortnow

  2. Department of Computer Science, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

    Noam Nisan & Avi Wigderson

Authors
  1. Lźszló Babai
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  2. Lance Fortnow
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  3. Noam Nisan
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  4. Avi Wigderson
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Babai, L., Fortnow, L., Nisan, N. et al. BPP has subexponential time simulations unlessEXPTIME has publishable proofs. Comput Complexity 3, 307–318 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01275486

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  • Received: 09 April 1991

  • Issue date: December 1993

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01275486

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Key words

  • Complexity Classes
  • Interactive Proof Systems

Subject classifications

  • 68Q15

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