Course Identification

High dimensional expanders and applications
20234081

Lecturers and Teaching Assistants

Prof. Irit Dinur
Dr. Yotam Dikstein

Course Schedule and Location

2023
First Semester
Tuesday, 14:15 - 17:00, Jacob Ziskind Building, Rm 155
08/11/2022
10/02/2023

Field of Study, Course Type and Credit Points

Mathematics and Computer Science: Lecture; Elective; Regular; 3.00 points

Comments

N/A

Prerequisites

No

Restrictions

40

Language of Instruction

English

Attendance and participation

Obligatory

Grade Type

Pass / Fail

Grade Breakdown (in %)

50%
25%
25%
for credit the students will need to scribe one lecture

Evaluation Type

Other

Scheduled date 1

N/A
N/A
-
N/A

Estimated Weekly Independent Workload (in hours)

N/A

Syllabus

Expansion in graphs has been tremendously successful in the past few decades, with connections to many mathematical areas, and a multitude of applications in computer science. 

High dimensional expansion is a new topic of study that attempts to generalize expansion to graphs with higher dimension. 

We will introduce several definitions of high dimensional expansion, and several (quite amazing) constructions coming mainly from group theory.

We will then move to explore connections between these objects and more classical computer science questions, such as

* rapid mixing of MArkiv chains

* locally testable codes

* probabilistically checkable proofs

Lecture 1-2: HDX spectral expansion; link expansion, up-down operators, double sampler. Spectral analysis of expansion in graphs and bipartite graphs ?

Lecture 3: Rapid mixing of Markov chains and relation to HDX

Lecture 4: Coboundary expansion definition and the complete complex

Lecture 5: Local testing and high dimensional expansion (A certain type of property testing how it relates to high dimensional expansion)

Lecture 6: Chain complexes, homology, cohomology, expansion, and quantum LDPC codes

Lecture 7: locally testable codes and the left-right Cayley complex

Lecture 8: Constructions of HDX from group theory: Kaufman-Oppenheim

Lecture 9: Constructions of HDX from group theory: LSV Ramanujan complexes

Lecture 10: PCPs and hardness of approximation 

Lecture 11: Parallel repetition and agreement testing

Lecture 12: The Grassman complex and the 2:2 theorem

Lecture 13: Open directions

 

more topics

* complement random walk and expander mixing lemma

* Sos lower bounds for 3LIN  through cohomological expansion

* Fourier analysis on HDX

* hypercontractivity

* combinatorial constructions of HDX

 

 

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course students will have a good understanding of high dimensional expansion.

The students will learn basic topics from a number of areas: topology, combinatorics, local testing and PCPs, hardness of approximation

 

Reading List

See also these related courses:

https://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~dinuri/courses/18-HDX/index.htm

and

http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~kost/HDExpanders13/

Website