Computer Science/Discrete Mathematics Seminar I

We prove a \(\tilde{\Omega}(n^{1/5})\) lower bound on the query complexity of any non-adaptive two-sided error algorithm for testing whether an unknown n-variable Boolean function is monotone versus constant-far from monotone. This gives an exponential improvement on the previous lower bound of \(\Omega(\log n)\) due to Fischer et al from 2002. Our approach extends to give a similar lower bound for monotonicity testing of Boolean-valued functions over certain hypergrid domains \(\{1,2,...,m\}^n\). Joint work with Li-Yang Tan.