The Sherali-Adams Hierarchy for Promise CSPs through Tensors

Abstract: We study the Sherali-Adams linear programming hierarchy in the context of promise constraint satisfaction problems (PCSPs). We characterise when a level of the hierarchy accepts an instance in terms of a homomorphism problem for an appropriate multilinear structure obtained through a tensor power of the constraint language. The geometry of this structure, which consists in a space of tensors satisfying certain symmetries, allows then to establish non-solvability of the approximate graph colouring problem via constantly many levels of Sherali-Adams. Besides this primary application, our tensorisation construction introduces a new tool to the study of hierarchies of algorithmic relaxations for computational problems within (and, possibly, beyond) the context of constraint satisfaction. In particular, we see it as a key step towards the algebraic characterisation of the power of Sherali-Adams for PCSPs.