Doubly Sub-Linear Interactive Proofs of Proximity

We initiate a study of doubly-efficient interactive proofs of proximity, while focusing on properties that can be tested within query-complexity that is significantly sub-linear, and seeking interactive proofs of proximity in which 1. The query-complexity of verification is significantly smaller than the query-complexity of testing. 2. The query-complexity of the honest prover strategy is not much larger than the query-complexity of testing. We call such proof systems doubly-sublinear IPPs (dsIPPs). We present a few doubly-sublinear IPPs. A salient feature of these IPPs is that the honest prover does not employ an optimal strategy (i.e. a strategy that maximizes the verifier’s acceptance probability). In particular, the honest prover in our IPP for sets recognizable by constant-width read-once oblivious branching programs uses a distance-approximator for such sets.