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MIN-FORMULA $in$ NP

Mathematics Asked by Ettore on November 19, 2021

I am thinking about the following problem: Show that MIN-FORMULA $in$ NP.

MIN-FORMULA is the set of minimal boolean formulas, i.e. formulas such that there is no shorter formula that computes the same boolean function.

I would like to have an advise whether or not the following approach/idea is ok.

Show by describing a non-deterministic algorithm N that solves the question of elementhood in polytime:

On a given formula $phi$:

Construct non-deterministically (i.e. simultaneously) all boolean formulas $psi$ such that

  1. $psi$ is smaller than $phi$ and
  2. $psi$ contains all variables of $phi$.

Check all resulting formulas $psi$ for equivalence with $phi$.
If none is equivalent, ACCEPT, otherwise, REJECT.

Thank you.

One Answer

The solution proposed seems wrong. Recall that when building a turing machine that uses non-determinism, if any path accepts,

So we cannot ACCEPT if none is equivalent: we can only take ACCEPT decisions from one of the branches of computation, not all of them!

A solution set to the above problem uses that this problem is $overline{texttt{NP}}$ : That is, the complement of $texttt{NP}$, where we can ACCEPT from all branches, and REJECT from one branch.

Answered by Siddharth Bhat on November 19, 2021

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