Lower bounds on balancing sets and depth-2 threshold circuits

Pavel Hrubeš, Sivaramakrishnan Natarajan Ramamoorthy, Anup Rao, Amir Yehudayoff

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

There are various notions of balancing set families that appear in combinatorics and computer science. For example, a family of proper non-empty subsets S1,..., Sk ⊂ [n] is balancing if for every subset X ⊂ {1, 2,..., n} of size n/2, there is an i ∈ [k] so that |Si ∩ X| = |Si|/2. We extend and simplify the framework developed by Hegedűs for proving lower bounds on the size of balancing set families. We prove that if n = 2p for a prime p, then k ≥ p. For arbitrary values of n, we show that k ≥ n/2 − o(n). We then exploit the connection between balancing families and depth-2 threshold circuits. This connection helps resolve a question raised by Kulikov and Podolskii on the fan-in of depth-2 majority circuits computing the majority function on n bits. We show that any depth-2 threshold circuit that computes the majority on n bits has at least one gate with fan-in at least n/2 − o(n). We also prove a sharp lower bound on the fan-in of depth-2 threshold circuits computing a specific weighted threshold function.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming, ICALP 2019
EditorsChristel Baier, Ioannis Chatzigiannakis, Paola Flocchini, Stefano Leonardi
Pages1-14
ISBN (Electronic)9783959771092
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jul 2019
Event46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming, ICALP 2019 - Patras, Greece
Duration: 9 Jul 201912 Jul 2019

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume132

Conference

Conference46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming, ICALP 2019
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityPatras
Period9/07/1912/07/19

Keywords

  • Balancing sets
  • Depth-2 threshold circuits
  • Majority
  • Polynomials
  • Weighted thresholds

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software

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