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Strong Inapproximability of the Shortest Reset Word

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Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2015 (MFCS 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9234))

Abstract

The Černý conjecture states that every n-state synchronizing automaton has a reset word of length at most \((n-1)^2\). We study the hardness of finding short reset words. It is known that the exact version of the problem, i.e., finding the shortest reset word, is \(\mathrm {NP}\)-hard and \(\mathrm {coNP}\)-hard, and complete for the \(\mathrm {DP}\) class, and that approximating the length of the shortest reset word within a factor of \(O(\log n)\) is \(\mathrm {NP}\)-hard [Gerbush and Heeringa, CIAA’10], even for the binary alphabet [Berlinkov, DLT’13]. We significantly improve on these results by showing that, for every \(\varepsilon >0\), it is \(\mathrm {NP}\)-hard to approximate the length of the shortest reset word within a factor of \(n^{1-\varepsilon }\). This is essentially tight since a simple O(n)-approximation algorithm exists.

Supported by the NCN grant 2011/01/D/ST6/07164.

P. Gawrychowski—Currently holding a post-doctoral position at Warsaw Center of Mathematics and Computer Science.

D. Straszak—Part of the work was carried out while the author was a student at Institute of Computer Science, University of Wrocław, Poland.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Amortized free bit complexity is a parameter of a PCP verifier which essentially corresponds to the ratio between the free bit complexity and the logarithm of error probability.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Informatics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Paweł Gawrychowski

  2. EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Damian Straszak

Authors
  1. Paweł Gawrychowski
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  2. Damian Straszak
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Correspondence to Damian Straszak .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Roma "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy

    Giuseppe F Italiano

  2. Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Giovanni Pighizzini

  3. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Donald T. Sannella

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Gawrychowski, P., Straszak, D. (2015). Strong Inapproximability of the Shortest Reset Word. In: Italiano, G., Pighizzini, G., Sannella, D. (eds) Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2015. MFCS 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9234. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48057-1_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48057-1_19

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-48056-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-48057-1

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