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Probabilistic checking of proofs: a new characterization of NP

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Arora, Sanjeev, Safra, Shmuel·1998·Journal of the ACM

Abstract

We give a new characterization of NP: the class NP contains exactly those languages L for which membership proofs (a proof that an input x is in L ) can be verified probabilistically in polynomial time using logarithmic number of random bits and by reading sublogarithmic number of bits from the proof. We discuss implications of this characterization; specifically, we show that approximating Clique and Independent Set, even in a very weak sense, is NP-hard.

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Metadata

Authors
Arora, S., & Safra, S.
Venue
Journal of the ACM
Published
1998-01
Volume
45
Issue
1
Pages
70-122
ISSN
  • 0004-5411 (ISSN-L)
  • 1557-735X
OpenAlex
W2019578639
Cited by
1,153
References
2
FWCI
35.16
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Probabilistic checking of proofs: a new characterization of NP. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1145/273865.273901
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Arora, S., & Safra, S. (1998). Probabilistic checking of proofs: a new characterization of NP. Journal of the ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/273865.273901

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