Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Dawar, Anuj, Pago, Benedikt, Seppelt, Tim
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Dawar, Anuj
Pago, Benedikt
Seppelt, Tim
author_facet Dawar, Anuj
Pago, Benedikt
Seppelt, Tim
contents The central open question of algebraic complexity is whether VP is unequal to VNP, which is saying that the permanent cannot be represented by families of polynomial-size algebraic circuits. For symmetric algebraic circuits, this has been confirmed by Dawar and Wilsenach (2020, 2025) who showed exponential lower bounds on the size of symmetric circuits for the permanent. In this work, we set out to develop a more general symmetric algebraic complexity theory. Our main result is that a family of symmetric polynomials admits small symmetric circuits if and only if they can be written as a linear combination of homomorphism counting polynomials of graphs of bounded treewidth. We also establish a relationship between the symmetric complexity of subgraph counting polynomials and the vertex cover number of the pattern graph. As a concrete example, we examine the symmetric complexity of immanant families (a generalisation of the determinant and permanent) and show that a known conditional dichotomy due to Curticapean (2021) holds unconditionally in the symmetric setting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_06740
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials
Dawar, Anuj
Pago, Benedikt
Seppelt, Tim
Computational Complexity
The central open question of algebraic complexity is whether VP is unequal to VNP, which is saying that the permanent cannot be represented by families of polynomial-size algebraic circuits. For symmetric algebraic circuits, this has been confirmed by Dawar and Wilsenach (2020, 2025) who showed exponential lower bounds on the size of symmetric circuits for the permanent. In this work, we set out to develop a more general symmetric algebraic complexity theory. Our main result is that a family of symmetric polynomials admits small symmetric circuits if and only if they can be written as a linear combination of homomorphism counting polynomials of graphs of bounded treewidth. We also establish a relationship between the symmetric complexity of subgraph counting polynomials and the vertex cover number of the pattern graph. As a concrete example, we examine the symmetric complexity of immanant families (a generalisation of the determinant and permanent) and show that a known conditional dichotomy due to Curticapean (2021) holds unconditionally in the symmetric setting.
title Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials
topic Computational Complexity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.06740