License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0)
When quoting this document, please refer to the following
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2019.41
URN: urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-102801
URL: http://dagstuhl.sunsite.rwth-aachen.de/volltexte/2019/10280/
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Jukna, Stasys ; Lingas, Andrzej

Lower Bounds for DeMorgan Circuits of Bounded Negation Width

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LIPIcs-STACS-2019-41.pdf (0.5 MB)

Abstract

We consider Boolean circuits over {or, and, neg} with negations applied only to input variables. To measure the "amount of negation" in such circuits, we introduce the concept of their "negation width". In particular, a circuit computing a monotone Boolean function f(x_1,...,x_n) has negation width w if no nonzero term produced (purely syntactically) by the circuit contains more than w distinct negated variables. Circuits of negation width w=0 are equivalent to monotone Boolean circuits, while those of negation width w=n have no restrictions. Our motivation is that already circuits of moderate negation width w=n^{epsilon} for an arbitrarily small constant epsilon>0 can be even exponentially stronger than monotone circuits.
We show that the size of any circuit of negation width w computing f is roughly at least the minimum size of a monotone circuit computing f divided by K=min{w^m,m^w}, where m is the maximum length of a prime implicant of f. We also show that the depth of any circuit of negation width w computing f is roughly at least the minimum depth of a monotone circuit computing f minus log K. Finally, we show that formulas of bounded negation width can be balanced to achieve a logarithmic (in their size) depth without increasing their negation width.

BibTeX - Entry

@InProceedings{jukna_et_al:LIPIcs:2019:10280,
  author =	{Stasys Jukna and Andrzej Lingas},
  title =	{{Lower Bounds for DeMorgan Circuits of Bounded Negation Width}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2019)},
  pages =	{41:1--41:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-100-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{126},
  editor =	{Rolf Niedermeier and Christophe Paul},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2019/10280},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2019.41},
  annote =	{Keywords: Boolean circuits, monotone circuits, lower bounds}
}

Keywords: Boolean circuits, monotone circuits, lower bounds
Collection: 36th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2019)
Issue Date: 2019
Date of publication: 12.03.2019

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