Random k-SAT: Two Moments Suffice to Cross a Sharp Threshold

dc.creatorAchlioptas, Dimitris
dc.creatorMoore, Cristopher
dc.date2003-10-09
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T02:54:07Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T02:54:07Z
dc.descriptionMany NP-complete constraint satisfaction problems appear to undergo a "phase transition'' from solubility to insolubility when the constraint density passes through a critical threshold. In all such cases it is easy to derive upper bounds on the location of the threshold by showing that above a certain density the first moment (expectation) of the number of solutions tends to zero. We show that in the case of certain symmetric constraints, considering the second moment of the number of solutions yields nearly matching lower bounds for the location of the threshold. Specifically, we prove that the threshold for both random hypergraph 2-colorability (Property B) and random Not-All-Equal k-SAT is 2^{k-1} ln 2 -O(1). As a corollary, we establish that the threshold for random k-SAT is of order Theta(2^k), resolving a long-standing open problem.
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0310227
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0310227
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/22415
dc.subjectStatistical Mechanics
dc.subjectComputational Complexity
dc.subjectCombinatorics
dc.subjectProbability
dc.titleRandom k-SAT: Two Moments Suffice to Cross a Sharp Threshold
dc.typetext

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