link

February 26, Tuesday
12:00 – 13:00

On Rigid Matrices and U-Polynomials
Computer Science seminar
Lecturer : Gil Cohen
Affiliation : Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science
Location : 202/37
Host : Dr.Aryeh Kontorovich
This talk focuses on the classic problem of Matrix Rigidity, introduced by Valiant '77, motivated by algebraic circuit lower bounds. We suggest a new route for resolving the problem by reducing it to the problem of efficiently constructing a hitting set for a class of polynomials, which we call U-polynomials. To showcase the reduction, we deduce that (large..) small-bias sets induce rigid matrices. We also show how to construct (large..) rigid sets from unbalanced expanders. Joint work with Noga Alon. No prior knowledge is assumed.