Algebraic methods in the theory of lower bounds for Boolean circuit complexity

  • Authors:
  • R. Smolensky

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley

  • Venue:
  • STOC '87 Proceedings of the nineteenth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing
  • Year:
  • 1987

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Abstract

We use algebraic methods to get lower bounds for complexity of different functions based on constant depth unbounded fan-in circuits with the given set of basic operations. In particular, we prove that depth k circuits with gates NOT, OR and MODp where p is a prime require Exp(&Ogr;(n1/2k)) gates to calculate MODr functions for any r ≠ pm. This statement contains as special cases Yao's PARITY result [ Ya 85 ] and Razborov's new MAJORITY result [Ra 86] (MODm gate is an oracle which outputs zero, if the number of ones is divisible by m).