
# Simple Lower Bounds for Small-bias Spaces

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I was reading about PRGs recently, and I think a lemma mentioned last time (used for Johnson-Lindenstrauss lower-bounds) can give simple lower-bounds for $\epsilon$-biased spaces.

Notice:

• $2^n$ mutually orthogonal vectors requires dimension at least $2^n$, but $2^n$ “almost orthogonal” vectors with pairwise inner-products $|\innp{v_i, v_j}| \leq \epsilon$ exists in dimension $O(n/\epsilon^2)$, by Johnson-Lindenstrauss.
• Sampling $n$ iid uniform bits requires a sample space of size $2^n$, but $n$ $\epsilon$-biased bits can be sampled from a space of size $O(n/\epsilon^2)$.

First, let's look at $k$-wise independent sample spaces, and see how the lower-bounds might be extended to the almost $k$-wise independent case.

Note: To skip the background, just see Lemma 1, and its application in Claim 3.

## 1. Preliminaries

What “size of the sample space” means is: For some sample space $S$, and $\pm 1$ random variables $X_i$, we will generate bits $x_1, \dots x_n$ as an instance of the r.vs $X_i$. That is, by drawing a sample $s \in S$, and setting $x_i = X_i(s)$. We would like to have $|S| \ll 2^n$, so we can sample from it using less than $n$ bits.

Also, any random variable $X$ over $S$ can be considered as a vector $\t X \in \R^{|S|}$, with coordinates $\t X[s] := \sqrt{\Pr[s]} X(s)$. This is convenient because $\innp{\t X, \t Y} = \E[XY]$.

## 2. Exact $k$-wise independence

A distribution $D$ on $n$ bits is $k$-wise independent if any subset of $k$ bits are iid uniformly distributed. Equivalently, the distribution $D : \{\pm 1\}^n \to \R_{\geq 0}$ is $k$-wise independent iff the Fourier coefficients $\hat D(S) = 0$ for all $S \neq 0, |S| \leq k$.

$n$ such $k$-wise independent bits can be generated from a seed of length $O(k \log n)$ bits, using say Reed-Solomon codes. That is, the size of the sample space is $n^{O(k)}$. This size is optimal, as the below claim shows (adapted from Umesh Vazirani's lecture notes [Vaz99]).

Claim 1 Let $D$ be a $k$-wise independent distribution on $\{\pm 1\}$ random variables $x_1, \dots, x_n$, over a sample space $S$. Then, $|S| = \Omega_k(n^{k / 2})$.

Proof: For subset $T \subseteq [n]$, let $\chi_T(x) = \prod_{i \in T} x_i$ be the corresponding Fourier character. Consider these characters as vectors in $\R^{|S|}$ as described above, with $\innp{\chi_A, \chi_B} = \E_{x \sim D}[\chi_A(x)\chi_B(x)]$

Let $J$ be the family of all subsets of size $\leq k/2$. Note that, for $A, B \in J$, the characters $\chi_A, \chi_B$ are orthogonal: \begin{align*} \innp{\chi_A, \chi_B} &= \E_{x \sim D}[\chi_A(x)\chi_B(x)]\\ &= \E_{x \sim D}[(\prod_{i \in A \cap B} x_i^2)(\prod_{i \in A \Delta B} x_i)]\\ &= \E_{x \sim D}[\chi_{A \Delta B}(x)] \note{since $x_i^2 = 1$}\\ &= 0 \note{since $|A \Delta B| \leq k$, and $D$ is $k$-wise independent} \end{align*} Here $A \Delta B$ denotes symmetric difference, and the last equality is because $\chi_{A \Delta B}$ depends on $\leq k$ variables, so the expectation over $D$ is the same as over iid uniform bits.

Thus, the characters $\{\chi_A\}_{A \in J}$ form a set of $|J|$ mutually-orthogonal vectors in $\R^{|S|}$. So we must have $|S| \geq |J| = \Omega_k(n^{k/2})$. $$\tag*{\blacksquare}$$

The key observation was relating independence of random variables to linear independence (orthogonality). Similarly, we could try to relate $\epsilon$-almost $k$-wise independent random variables to almost-orthogonal vectors.

## 3. Main Lemma

This result is Theorem 9.3 from Alon's paper [Alo03]. The proof is very clean, and Section 9 can be read independently. 11. Theorem 9.3 is stated in terms of lower bounding the rank of a matrix $B \in \R^{N \x N}$ where $B_{i,i} = 1$ and $|B_{i, j}| \leq \epsilon$. The form stated here follows by defining $B_{i, j} := \innp{v_i, v_j}$.

Lemma 1 Let $\{v_i\}_{i \in [N]}$ be a collection of $N$ unit vectors in $\R^d$, such that $|\innp{v_i, v_j}| \leq \epsilon$ for all $i \neq j$. Then, for $\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}} \leq \epsilon \leq 1/2$, $d \geq \Omega\left(\frac{\log N}{\epsilon^2 \log(1/\epsilon)}\right)$

This lower-bound on the dimension of “almost-orthogonal” vectors translates to a nearly-tight lower-bound on Johnson-Lindenstrauss embedding dimension, and will also help us below.

## 4. Small bias spaces

A distribution $D$ on $n$ bits is $\epsilon$-biased w.r.t linear tests (or just “$\epsilon$-biased”) if all $\F_2$-linear tests are at most $\epsilon$-biased. That is, for $x \in \{\pm 1\}^n$, the following holds for all subsets $S \subseteq [n]$: $\left|\E_{x \sim D}[\chi_S(x)]\right| = \left|\Pr_{x \sim D}[\chi_S(x) = 1] - \Pr_{x \sim D}[\chi_S(x) = -1]\right| \leq \epsilon$ Similarly, a distribution is $\epsilon$-biased w.r.t. linear tests of size $k$ (or “$k$-wise $\epsilon$-biased) if the above holds for all subsets $S$ of size $\leq k$.

There exists an $\epsilon$-biased space on $n$ bits of size $O(n / \epsilon^2)$: a set of $O(n / \epsilon^2)$ random $n$-bit strings will be $\epsilon$-biased w.h.p. Further, explicit constructions exist that are nearly optimal: the such first construction was in [NN93], and was nicely simplified by [AGHP92] (both papers are very readable).

These can be used to sample $n$ bits that are $k$-wise $\epsilon$-biased, from a space of size almost $O(k \log(n)/\epsilon^2)$; much better than the size $\Omega(n^k)$ required for perfect $k$-wise independence. For example22. This can be done by composing an $(n, k')$ ECC with dual-distance $k$ and an $\epsilon$-biased distribution on $k' = k\log n$ bits. Basically, use a linear construction for generating $n$ exactly $k$-wise independent bits from $k'$ iid uniform bits, but use an $\epsilon$-biased distribution on $k'$ bits as the seed instead. , see [AGHP92] or the lecture notes [Vaz99].

### 4.1. Lower Bounds

The best lower bound on size of an $\epsilon$-biased space on $n$ bits seems to be $\Omega(\frac{n}{\epsilon^2 \log(1/\epsilon)})$, which is almost tight. The proofs of this in the literature (to my knowledge) work by exploiting a nice connection to error-correcting codes: Say we have a sample space $S$ under the uniform measure. Consider the characters $\chi_T(x)$ as vectors $\t \chi_T \in \{\pm 1\}^{|S|}$ defined by $\t \chi_T[s] = \chi_T(x(s))$, similar to what we did in Section 2. The set of $2^n$ vectors $\{\t \chi_T\}_{T \subseteq [n]}$ defines the codewords of a linear code of length $|S|$ and dimension $n$. Further, the hamming-weight of each codeword (number of $-1$s in each codeword, in our context), is within $n(\frac{1}{2} \pm \epsilon)$, since each parity $\chi_T$ is at most $\epsilon$-biased. Thus this code has relative distance at least $\frac{1}{2} - \epsilon$, and we can use sphere-packing-type bounds from coding-theory to lower-bound the codeword length $|S|$ required to achieve such a distance. Apparently the “McEliece-Rodemich-Rumsey-Welch bound” works in this case; a more detailed discussion is in [AGHP92, Section 7].

We can also recover this same lower bound using Lemma 1 in a straightforward way.

Claim 2 Let $D$ be an $\epsilon$-biased distribution on $n$ bits $x_1, \dots, x_n$, over a sample space $S$. Then, $|S| = \Omega\left(\frac{n}{\epsilon^2 \log(1/\epsilon)}\right)$

Proof: Following the proof of Claim 1, consider the Fourier characters $\chi_T(x)$ as vectors $\t \chi_T \in \R^{|S|}$, with $\t \chi_T[s] = \sqrt{\Pr[s]} \chi_T(x(s))$. Then, for all distinct subsets $A, B \subseteq [n]$, we have $\innp{\t \chi_A, \t \chi_B} = \E_{x \sim D}[\chi_A(x)\chi_B(x)] = \E_{x \sim D}[\chi_{A \Delta B}(x)]$ Since $D$ is $\epsilon$-biased, $\left|\E_{x \sim D}[\chi_{A \Delta B}(x)]\right| \leq \epsilon$ for all $A \neq B$. Thus, applying Lemma 1 to the collection of $N = 2^n$ unit vectors $\{\t \chi_T\}_{T \subseteq [n]}$ gives the lower bound $|S| = \Omega\left(\frac{n}{\epsilon^2 \log(1/\epsilon)}\right)$. $$\tag*{\blacksquare}$$

This also nicely generalizes the proof of Claim 1, to give an almost-tight lower bound on spaces that are $\epsilon$-biased w.r.t linear tests of size $k$.

Claim 3 Let $D$ be a distribution on $n$ bits that is $\epsilon$-biased w.r.t. linear tests of size $k$. Then, the size of the sample space is $|S| = \Omega\left(\frac{k \log (n/k)}{\epsilon^2 \log(1/\epsilon)}\right)$

Proof: As before, consider the Fourier characters $\chi_T(x)$ as vectors $\t \chi_T \in \R^{|S|}$, with $\t \chi_T[s] = \sqrt{\Pr[s]} \chi_T(x(s))$. Let $J$ be the family of all subsets $T \subseteq [n]$ of size $\leq k/2$. Then, for all distinct subsets $A, B \in J$, we have $\left|\innp{\t \chi_A, \t \chi_B}\right| = \left|\E_{x \sim D}[\chi_{A \Delta B}(x)]\right| \leq \epsilon$ since $|A \Delta B| \leq k$, and $D$ is $\epsilon$-biased w.r.t such linear tests. Applying Lemma 1 to the collection of $|J|$ unit vectors $\{\t \chi_T\}_{T \in J}$ gives $|S| = \Omega(\frac{k \log (n/k)}{\epsilon^2 \log(1/\epsilon)})$. $$\tag*{\blacksquare}$$

Note: I couldn't find the lower bound given by Claim 3 in the literature, so please let me know if you find a bug or reference.

Also, these bounds do not directly imply nearly tight lower bounds for $\epsilon$-almost $k$-wise independent distributions (that is, distributions s.t. their marginals on all sets of $k$ variables are $\epsilon$-close to the uniform distribution, in $\ell_{\infty}$ or $\ell_{1}$ norm). Essentially because of the loss in moving between closeness in Fourier domain and closeness in distributions. 33. Eg, $\epsilon$-biased $\implies$ $\epsilon$-close in $\ell_{\infty}$, but $\epsilon$-close in $\ell_{\infty}$ can be up to $2^{k-1}\epsilon$-biased. And $2^{-k/2}\epsilon$-biased $\implies$ $\epsilon$-close in $\ell_{1}$, but not the other direction.

### References

[AGHP92] Noga Alon, Oded Goldreich, Johan Håstad, and Ren{é} Peralta. Simple constructions of almost k-wise independent random variables. Random Structures \& Algorithms, 3(3):289--304, 1992. URL: http://www.tau.ac.il/~nogaa/PDFS/aghp4.pdf.

[Alo03] Noga Alon. Problems and results in extremal combinatorics, part i. Discrete Math, 273:31--53, 2003. URL: http://www.tau.ac.il/~nogaa/PDFS/extremal1.pdf.

[NN93] Joseph Naor and Moni Naor. Small-bias probability spaces: Efficient constructions and applications. SIAM journal on computing, 22(4):838--856, 1993. URL: http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~naor/PAPERS/bias.pdf.

[Vaz99] Umesh Vazirani. k-wise independence and epsilon-biased k-wise indepedence. 1999. URL: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/s99cs294/notes/lec4.pdf.