This is the nineteenth edition of a (usually) quarterly column that covers new developments in the theory of NP-completeness. The presentation is modeled on that used by M. R. Garey and myself in our book ‘‘Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness,’ ’ W. H. Freeman & Co., New York, 1979 (hereinafter referred to as ‘‘[G&J]’’; previous columns will be referred to by their dates). A background equivalent to that provided by [G&J] is assumed, and, when appropriate, cross-references will be given to that book and the list of problems (NP-complete and harder) presented there. Readers who have results they would like mentioned (NP-hardness, PSPACE-hardness, polynomial-time-solvability, etc.) or open problems they would like publicized, should

Counting classes consist of languages defined in terms of the number of accepting computations of nondeterministic polynomial-time Turing machines. Well known examples of counting classes are NP, co-NP, \PhiP, and PP. Every counting class is a subset of P #P[1] , the class of languages computable in polynomial time using a single call to an oracle capable of determining the number of accepting paths of an NP machine. Using closure properties of #P, we systematically develop a complexity theory for counting classes defined in terms of thresholds and moduli. An unexpected result is that MOD k iP = MOD k P for prime k. Finally, we improve a result of Cai and Hemachandra by showing that recognizing languages in the class Few is as easy as distinguishing uniquely satisfiable formulas from unsatisfiable formulas (or detecting unique solutions, as in [28]). 1. Introduction Valiant [27] defined the class #P of functions whose values equal the number of accepting paths of polynomial-time bo...

Berman and Hartmanis [BH77] conjectured that there is a polynomialtime computable isomorphism between any two languages complete for NP with respect to polynomial-time computable many-one (Karp) reductions. Joseph and Young [JY85] gave a structural definition of a class of NP-complete sets---the k-creative sets---and defined a class of sets (the K k f 's) that are necessarily k-creative. They went on to conjecture that certain of these K k f 's are not isomorphic to the standard NP-complete sets. Clearly, the Berman--Hartmanis and Joseph--Young conjectures cannot both be correct. We introduce a family of strong one-way functions, the scrambling functions. If f is a scrambling function, then K k f is not isomorphic to the standard NP-complete sets, as Joseph and Young conjectured, and the Berman-Hartmanis conjecture fails. Indeed, if scrambling functions exist, then the isomorphism also fails at higher complexity classes such as EXP and NEXP. As evidence for the existence of scramb...

help us decide where and how to put our efforts into solving We show that MAEXP, the exponential time version of problems in complexity theory. It is still true that virtually the Merlin-Arthur class, does not have polynomial size cir- all of the theorems in computational complexity theory that cuits. This significantly improves the previous known result have reasonable relativizations do relativize (see [For94]). due to Kannan since we furthermore show that our result But we do have a small number of exceptions that arise does not relativize. This is the first separation result in com- from the area of interactive proofs. These results have preplexity theory that does not relativize. As a corollary to our viously always taken the form of collapses such as IP= separation result we also obtain that PEXP, the exponen- PSPACE [LFKN92, Sha92], MIP=NEXP [BFL91] and tial time version of PP is not in P=poly. PCP(O(1);O(logn))=NP [ALM+92]. In this paper we give the first reasonable nonrel-1

A set A is p-terse (p-superterse) if, for all q, it is not possible to answer q queries to A by making only q \Gamma 1 queries to A (any set X). Formally, let PF A q-tt be the class of functions reducible to A via a polynomial-time truthtable reduction of norm q, and let PF A q-T be the class of functions reducible to A via a polynomial-time Turing reduction that makes at most q queries. A set A is p-terse if PF A q-tt 6` PF A (q\Gamma1)-T for all constants q. A is p-superterse if PF A q-tt 6` PF X q-T for all constants q and sets X . We show that all NP-hard sets (under p tt -reductions) are p-superterse, unless it is possible to distinguish uniquely satisfiable formulas from satisfiable formulas in polynomial time. Consequently, all NP-complete sets are psuperterse unless P = UP (one-way functions fail to exist), R = NP (there exist randomized polynomial-time algorithms for all problems in NP), and the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses. This mostly solves the main open...

Can easy sets only have easy certificate schemes? In this paper, we study the class of sets that, for all NP certificate schemes (i.e., NP machines), always have easy acceptance certificates (i.e., accepting paths) that can be computed in polynomial time. We also study the class of sets that, for all NP certificate schemes, infinitely often have easy acceptance certificates. We give structural conditions that control the size of these classes. 1 Introduction Borodin and Demers [BD76] proved the following result. Theorem 1.1 [BD76] If NP " coNP 6= P, then there exists a set L such that 1. L 2 P, 2. L ` SAT, and 3. For no polynomial-time computable function f does it hold that: for each F 2 L, f(F ) outputs a satisfying assignment of F . That is, under a hypothesis most theoreticians would guess to be true, it follows that there is a set of satisfiable formulas for which it is trivial to determine they are satisfiable, yet it is hard to determine why (i.e., via what satisfying assignm...

In 1985, Goldwasser, Micali and Rackoff formulated interactive proof systems as a tool for developing cryptographic protocols. Indeed, many exciting cryptographic results followed from studying interactive proof systems and the related concept of zero-knowledge. Interactive proof systems also have an important part in complexity theory merging the well established concepts of probabilistic and nondeterministic computation. This thesis will study the complexity of various models of interactive proof systems. A perfect zero-knowledge interactive protocol convinces a verifier that a string is in a language without revealing any additional knowledge in an information theoretic sense. This thesis will show that for any language that has a perfect zero-knowledge proof system, its complement has a short interactive protocol. This result implies that there are not any perfect zero-knowledge protocols for NP-complete languages unless the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses. Thus knowledge comp...

We consider a class, denoted APP, of real-valued functions f : f0; 1g n ! [0; 1] such that f can be approximated, to within any ffl ? 0, by a probabilistic Turing machine running in time poly(n; 1=ffl). We argue that APP can be viewed as a generalization of BPP, and show that APP contains a natural complete problem: computing the acceptance probability of a given Boolean circuit; in contrast, no complete problems are known for BPP. We observe that all known complexity-theoretic assumptions under which BPP is easy (i.e., can be efficiently derandomized) imply that APP is easy; on the other hand, we show that BPP may be easy while APP is not, by constructing an appropriate oracle. 1 Introduction The complexity class BPP is traditionally considered a class of languages that can be efficiently decided with the help of randomness. While it does contain some natural problems, the "semantic" nature of its definition (on every input, a BPP machine must have either at least 3=4 or at...

We present a method to prove oracle theorems of the following type.

We show that any two complexity classes satisfying some general conditions are distinct relative to a generic oracle iff the corresponding type-2 classes are distinct.