Randomized feasible interpolation and monotone circuits with a local oracle

Abstract

The feasible interpolation theorem for semantic derivations from [J. Krajíček, Interpolation theorems, lower bounds for proof systems, and independence results for bounded arithmetic, J. Symbolic Logic 62(2) (1997) 457–486] allows to derive from some short semantic derivations (e.g. in resolution) of the disjointness of two [Formula: see text] sets [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] a small communication protocol (a general dag-like protocol in the sense of Krajíček (1997) computing the Karchmer–Wigderson multi-function [Formula: see text] associated with the sets, and such a protocol further yields a small circuit separating [Formula: see text] from [Formula: see text]. When [Formula: see text] is closed upwards, the protocol computes the monotone Karchmer–Wigderson multi-function [Formula: see text] and the resulting circuit is monotone. Krajíček [Interpolation by a game, Math. Logic Quart. 44(4) (1998) 450–458] extended the feasible interpolation theorem to a larger class of semantic derivations using the notion of a real communication complexity (e.g. to the cutting planes proof system CP). In this paper, we generalize the method to a still larger class of semantic derivations by allowing randomized protocols. We also introduce an extension of the monotone circuit model, monotone circuits with a local oracle (CLOs), that does correspond to communication protocols for [Formula: see text] making errors. The new randomized feasible interpolation thus shows that a short semantic derivation (from a certain class of derivations larger than in the original method) of the disjointness of [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] closed upwards, yields a small randomized protocol for [Formula: see text] and hence a small monotone CLO separating the two sets. This research is motivated by the open problem to establish a lower bound for proof system [Formula: see text] operating with clauses formed by linear Boolean functions over [Formula: see text]. The new randomized feasible interpolation applies to this proof system and also to (the semantic versions of) cutting planes CP, to small width resolution over CP of Krajíček [Discretely ordered modules as a first-order extension of the cutting planes proof system, J. Symbolic Logic 63(4) (1998) 1582–1596] (system R(CP)) and to random resolution RR of Buss, Kolodziejczyk and Thapen [Fragments of approximate counting, J. Symbolic Logic 79(2) (2014) 496–525]. The method does not yield yet lengths-of-proofs lower bounds; for this it is necessary to establish lower bounds for randomized protocols or for monotone CLOs.