Exponential separation of communication and external information

Anat Ganor, Gillat Kol, Ran Raz

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

We show an exponential gap between communication complexity and external information complexity, by analyzing a communication task suggested as a candidate by Braverman. Previously, only a separation of communication complexity and internal information complexity was known. More precisely, we obtain an explicit example of a search problem with external information complexity ≤ O(k), with respect to any input distribution, and distributional communication complexity ≥ 2k, with respect to some input distribution. In particular, this shows that a communication protocol cannot always be compressed to its external information. By a result of Braverman, our gap is the largest possible. Moreover, since the upper bound of O(k) on the external information complexity of the problem is obtained with respect to any input distribution, our result implies an exponential gap between communication complexity and information complexity (both internal and external) in the non-distributional setting of Braverman. In this setting, no gap was previously known, even for internal information complexity.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationSTOC 2016 - Proceedings of the 48th Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing
EditorsYishay Mansour, Daniel Wichs
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages977-986
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781450341325
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 19 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event48th Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 2016 - Cambridge, United States
Duration: Jun 19 2016Jun 21 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing
Volume19-21-June-2016
ISSN (Print)0737-8017

Other

Other48th Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityCambridge
Period6/19/166/21/16

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software

Keywords

  • Communication complexity
  • Communication compression
  • Information complexity

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