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property_testing (1928B)


      1 # Property testing
      2 
      3 You have an object O and a property P, and you want to determine if O has property P via local queries. Further, you have the promise that O either has the property P, or is ε-far from the property, i.e., the distance from O to any object X having the property is at least ε |X|. You want to minimize the [query_complexity]
      4 
      5 Examples:
      6 
      7 - [property_testing_formal_language]
      8   - you want to test membership to a [formal_language]
      9   - you can test which letter is at a given position
     10   - the promise is on some proportion of the letters in the word
     11 - [property_testing_Boolean_function]
     12   - you want to test if a [Boolean_function] has a certain property
     13     - is it a [constant_boolean_function]
     14     - is it a [dictatorship_boolean_function]
     15   - you can evaluate the function at some point
     16   - the promise is on some proportion of the values of the truth table
     17 - [property_testing_graph]
     18   - you want to test a [graph_property]
     19   - you can test whether some edge exists (dense graphs) or find the i-th neighbor of a vertex (sparse graphs of bounded degree)
     20   - the promise is in some proportion of the values of the [adjacency_matrix] (dense graphs) or edges (sparse graphs)
     21 - [property_testing_CSP]
     22 - [property_testing_databases]
     23 
     24 Typical framework:
     25 
     26 - local obstructions that justify that you don't have the property
     27   - e.g., a [triangle] in a graph, when determining if the graph is [triangle_free]
     28   - e.g., x and y such that f(x) \neq f(y), when determining if a function is constant
     29 - lemma: ε-far => contains many obstructions
     30   - e.g., a graph which is ε-far from a triangle-free graph contains many triangles
     31   - [Szemerédi's_Regularity_Lemma]
     32 - sampling algorithm to find a local obstruction whp
     33 
     34 Property testing and [computational_complexity]: cf [ferreirapinto2026computational]
     35 
     36 Up: [computational_problem]
     37 
     38 See also: [model_checking], [Approximate_membership], [tolerant_property_testing]