Abstract

We use algebraic techniques to obtain superlinear lower bounds on the size of boundedwidth branching programs to solve a number of problems. In particular, we show that any bounded-width branching program computing a nonconstant threshold function has length \Omega\Gamma n log log n); improving on the previous lower bounds known to apply to all such threshold functions. We also show that any program over a finite solvable monoid computing products in a nonsolvable group has length\Omega\Gamma n log log n): This result is a step toward proving the conjecture that the circuit complexity class ACC 0 is properly contained in NC 1 : A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proceedings of the 1991 Structure in Complexity Theory Symposium. 1. The Main Results In this paper we describe a general algebraic technique for obtaining superlinear lower bounds on the length of bounded-width branching programs to solve certain problems. Our method is based on the interpretation, ...

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