Distributed PCP Theorems for Hardness of Approximation in P

We present a new distributed} model of probabilistically checkable proofs (PCP). A satisfying assignment x ∊ \{0,1\}^n to a CNF formula \phi is shared between two parties, where Alice knows x_1, \dots, x_{n/2, Bob knows x_{n/2+1},\dots,x_n, and both parties know \phi. The goal is to have Alice and Bob jointly write a PCP that x satisfies \phi, while exchanging little or no information. Unfortunately, this model as-is does not allow for nontrivial query complexity. Instead, we focus on a non-deterministic} variant, where the players are helped by Merlin, a third party who knows all of x.Using our framework, we obtain, for the first time, PCP-like reductions from the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH) to approximation problems in \P. In particular, under SETH we show that %(assuming SETH) there are no truly-subquadratic approximation algorithms for %the following problems: Maximum Inner Product over \{0,1\}-vectors, LCS Closest Pair over permutations, Approximate Partial Match, Approximate Regular Expression Matching, and Diameter in Product Metric. All our inapproximability factors are nearly-tight. In particular, for the first three problems we obtain nearly-polynomial factors of 2^{(log n)^{1-o(1)}};only (1+o(1))-factor lower bounds (under SETH) were known before.As an additional feature of our reduction, we obtain new SETH lower bounds for the exact} monochromatic Closest Pair problem in the Euclidean, Manhattan, and Hamming metrics.