Black-Box Identity Testing of Depth-4 Multilinear Circuits

We study the problem of identity testing for multilinear ΣΠΣΠ(k) circuits, i.e., multilinear depth-4 circuits with fan-in k at the top + gate. We give the first polynomial-time deterministic identity testing algorithm for such circuits when k=O(1). Our results also hold in the black-box setting.The running time of our algorithm is $${\left( {ns} \right)^{{\text{O}}\left( {{k^3}} \right)}}$$(ns)O(k3), where n is the number of variables, s is the size of the circuit and k is the fan-in of the top gate. The importance of this model arises from [11], where it was shown that derandomizing black-box polynomial identity testing for general depth-4 circuits implies a derandomization of polynomial identity testing (PIT) for general arithmetic circuits. Prior to our work, the best PIT algorithm for multilinear ΣΠΣΠ(k) circuits [31] ran in quasi-polynomial-time, with the running time being $${n^{{\rm O}\left( {{k^6}\log \left( k \right){{\log }^2}s} \right)}}$$nΟ(k6log(k)log2s).We obtain our results by showing a strong structural result for multilinear ΣΠΣΠ(k) circuits that compute the zero polynomial. We show that under some mild technical conditions, any gate of such a circuit must compute a sparse polynomial. We then show how to combine the structure theorem with a result by Klivans and Spielman [33], on the identity testing for sparse polynomials, to yield the full result.