Clique Is Hard on Average for Regular Resolution

12/17/2020

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by   Albert Atserias, et al.

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We prove that for k ≪√(n) regular resolution requires length n^Ω(k) to establish that an Erdős-Rényi graph with appropriately chosen edge density does not contain a k-clique. This lower bound is optimal up to the multiplicative constant in the exponent, and also implies unconditional n^Ω(k) lower bounds on running time for several state-of-the-art algorithms for finding maximum cliques in graphs.