Upper Bounds for Symmetric Approximate Bounded Indistinguishability

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Williamson, Christopher
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Williamson, Christopher
author_facet Williamson, Christopher
contents A pair of probability distributions over $\{0,1\}^n$ is said to be $(k,δ)$-wise indistinguishable if all of the size $k$ marginals are within statistical distance at most $δ$. Previous works introduced this concept and study when and how well one can distinguish between such a pair of symmetric distributions by observing $t$ bits. We use a simple hypergeometric smoothing approach and Hahn polynomials to obtain new upper bounds that apply across a wider range of parameters and improve previously available bounds in several regimes. In particular, prior works left open the basic question of whether there exist constants $0<c_1<c_2<1$ and a pair of $(c_1n,0)$-wise indistinguishable distributions such that the $c_2n$-wise marginals have statistical distance $Ω(1)$. One application of our new bounds is to rule this out for all $c_1,c_2$ and to show that the $c_2n$-wise marginals must in fact be exponentially close. Another application in this setting is to show that the $c_2n$-wise marginals must be super-polynomially close even if the $c_1n$-wise marginals are allowed to have statistical distance $δ$ for any $δ\leq\exp\left({-ω(\sqrt{n\log{n}})}\right)$. Our bounds also yield new results in other regimes, for example when $k$ is sublinear or when $t/n$ tends to 1.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_13771
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Upper Bounds for Symmetric Approximate Bounded Indistinguishability
Williamson, Christopher
Computational Complexity
Probability
A pair of probability distributions over $\{0,1\}^n$ is said to be $(k,δ)$-wise indistinguishable if all of the size $k$ marginals are within statistical distance at most $δ$. Previous works introduced this concept and study when and how well one can distinguish between such a pair of symmetric distributions by observing $t$ bits. We use a simple hypergeometric smoothing approach and Hahn polynomials to obtain new upper bounds that apply across a wider range of parameters and improve previously available bounds in several regimes. In particular, prior works left open the basic question of whether there exist constants $0<c_1<c_2<1$ and a pair of $(c_1n,0)$-wise indistinguishable distributions such that the $c_2n$-wise marginals have statistical distance $Ω(1)$. One application of our new bounds is to rule this out for all $c_1,c_2$ and to show that the $c_2n$-wise marginals must in fact be exponentially close. Another application in this setting is to show that the $c_2n$-wise marginals must be super-polynomially close even if the $c_1n$-wise marginals are allowed to have statistical distance $δ$ for any $δ\leq\exp\left({-ω(\sqrt{n\log{n}})}\right)$. Our bounds also yield new results in other regimes, for example when $k$ is sublinear or when $t/n$ tends to 1.
title Upper Bounds for Symmetric Approximate Bounded Indistinguishability
topic Computational Complexity
Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.13771