Deterministic Algorithm for Lovasz Local Lemma

Series:
Combinatorics Seminar
Friday, September 4, 2009 - 15:00
1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location:
Skiles 255
,
College of Computing
Organizer:
Lovasz Local Lemma (LLL) is a powerful result in probability theory that states that the probability that none of a set of bad events happens is nonzero if the probability of each event is small compared to the number of events that depend on it. It is often used in combination with the probabilistic method for non-constructive existence proofs. A prominent application of LLL is to k-CNF formulas, where LLL implies that, if every clause in the formula shares variables with at most d \le 2^k/e other clauses then such a formula has a satisfying assignment. Recently, a randomized algorithm to efficiently construct a satisfying assignment was given by Moser. Subsequently Moser and Tardos gave a randomized algorithm to construct the structures guaranteed by the LLL in a very general algorithmic framework. We will address the main problem left open by Moser and Tardos of derandomizing their algorithm efficiently when the number of other events that any bad event depends on is possibly unbounded. An interesting special case of the open problem is the k-CNF problem when k = \omega(1), that is, when k is more than a constant.