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On sparse hard sets for counting classes. (English) Zbl 0780.68043
Summary: We study one-word-decreasing self-reducible sets which are introduced by A. Lozano and J. Toran [Math. Syst. Theory 24, No. 2, 83-100 (1991; Zbl 0722.68058)]. These are the usual self-reducible sets with the peculiarity that the self-reducibility machine makes at most one query and this is lexicographically smaller than the input. We show first that for all counting classes defined by a predicate on the number of accepting paths there exist complete sets which are one-word-decreasing self-reducible. Using this fact, we can prove that for any class $$K$$ chosen from $$\{PP,NP,C_ =P,MOD_ 2P,Mod_ 3P,...,\}$$ it holds that
(1) if there is a sparse $$\leq^ P_{btt}$$-hard set for $$K$$ then $$K\subseteq P$$ and
(2) if there is a sparse $$\leq^{SN}_{btt}$$-hard set for $$K$$ then $$K\subseteq NP\cap co-NP$$. This generalizes the result of M. Ogiwara and O. Watanabe [SIAM J. Comput. 20, No. 3, 471-483 (1991; Zbl 0741.68049)] to the mentioned complexity classes.

##### MSC:
 68Q15 Complexity classes (hierarchies, relations among complexity classes, etc.)
##### Keywords:
structural complexity; counting classes
Full Text:
##### References:
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