Event time:
Wednesday, October 28, 2015 - 6:30am to 7:45am
Location:
431 DL
Speaker:
Nike Sun
Speaker affiliation:
MIT
Event description:
We establish the random k-SAT threshold conjecture for all k exceeding an absolute constant k(0). That is, there is a single critical value c∗(k) such that a random k-SAT formula at clause-to-variable ratio c is with high probability satisfiable for cc∗(k), and unsatisfiable for cc∗(k). The threshold c∗(k) matches the explicit prediction derived by statistical physicists on the basis of the one-step replica symmetry breaking (1RSB) heuristic. In the talk I will describe the main obstacles in computing the threshold, and explain how they are overcome in our proof.
Joint work with Jian Ding and Allan Sly.