Some notes on computing the Mbius function using circuits of bounded o depth BJG 11th March 2011

These are some very rough notes arising from a discussion on Math Overow initiated by Gil Kalai [1]. The aim is to sketch a proof of what was described on the blog [2] as the Kalai-Sarnak conjecture: any function F : [N ] {1, 1} that can be computed using a bounded depth circuit in the binary digits of x is orthogonal to the Mbius function in the sense that Ex o functions F . Write AC0 (d) for the set of such functions F computed by circuits of depth at most d. I believe that this result can be established by essentially juxtaposing a wellknown result of Lilian, Mansour and Nisan [3] with a perhaps less celebrated paper of Harman and Ktai [4]. I plan to work out the details in due course. a Let f : [N ] [1, 1] be a function. Following Kalai we distingush two types of Fourier coecient of f : the standard Fourier coecients f () := Ex and the Fourier-Walsh coecients f (S) := ExN f (x)(1)
iS

N (x)F (x)

= o(1), uniformly in such

N f (x)e(x)

xi

Here, the xi are the binary digits of x and S [n], where N = 2n (in these notes we will assume for simplicity that N is a power of two). Theorem 1 (Linial-Mansour-Nisan). Suppose that f : [N ] [1, 1] is a function and that F AC0 . Suppose that |En there is some S, |S| has magnitude at least e(log n)
Od (1) 2

, where > 2c(log n) . Then (log n)Od (1) , such that the Fourier-Walsh coecient f (S)
N f (n)F (n)|

Proof. By the main result of [3] we have |F (S)|

S[n],|S|>(log n)2d

nO(1) 2c(log n) < 2c (log n) .

Thus by Fourier inversion F (x1 , . . . , xn ) =

S,|S|<(log n)2d

F (S)(1)
2

iS

xi

+ g = F + g,

say, where g We have

2c (log n) . |ExN f (x)F (x)|

1

/2.

Hence by pigeonhole there is some S such that f (S) is as large as claimed.

The following can be extracted from [4]. Theorem 2 (Harman-Katai). Let f : [N ] [1, 1] be a function with the Fourier Walsh coecient |f (S)| , where |S| = k. Then there is a dyadic rational such
2 that the traditional Fourier coecient |f ()| > k /2k .

Proof. (Sketch) We have f (S) = Ex

N f (x) iS

x ), 2i

where : R/Z [1, 1] is the function dened by (t) = 1 if t [0, 1/2] and (t) = 1 if t [1/2, 1]. Replace by a smoothed version with the property that with being given by a nicely convergent Fourier series: (t) =
rZ 1

< , but

cr e(rt)

with

|cr |

1/. This is a very standard manuvre and such a can be

constructed e.g. by convolving by a a couple of intervals of length O(). From the assumption and a fairly evident calculation we get Ex if < 2
k N iS

x f (x)( i ) 2

O(2k ) > /2

. Now develop each in Fourier to get cr1 cr2 . . . crk Ex

r1 ,...,rk Z N f (x)e

r1 rk + + i )x) i1 2 2k

/2,

where S = {i1 , . . . , ik }. The result follows by the triangle inequality. Combining the two results immediately yields: Corollary 1. Suppose that f : [N ] [1, 1] correlates with some F AC0 . Then O (1) there is some dyadic rational such that |f ()| > e(log log N ) d . This is already enough to conclude that is orthogonal to AC0 functions on the GRH, by known bounds for exponential sums over Mbius (in fact, () < N c ). I o believe that GRH can be circumvented using the arguments of Harman and Katai together with the crucial additional observation that is a dyadic rational ; I plan to comment on this in due course.

References
[1] Gil Kalai, http://mathoverow.net/questions/57543/walsh-fourier-transform-of-mobiusfunctions [2] http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/the-depth-of-the-mobius-function/ [3] Linial, Mansour, Nisan, Constant depth circuits, Fourier transform, and learnability [4] Harman, Ktai a