A note on VNP-completeness and border complexity (2102.07173v3)

Abstract: In 1979 Valiant introduced the complexity class VNP of p-definable families of polynomials, he defined the reduction notion known as p-projection and he proved that the permanent polynomial and the Hamiltonian cycle polynomial are VNP-complete under p-projections. In 2001 Mulmuley and Sohoni (and independently B\"urgisser) introduced the notion of border complexity to the study of the algebraic complexity of polynomials. In this algebraic machine model, instead of insisting on exact computation, approximations are allowed. This gives VNP the structure of a topological space. In this short note we study the set VNPC of VNP-complete polynomials. We show that the complement VNP \ VNPC lies dense in VNP. Quite surprisingly, we also prove that VNPC lies dense in VNP. We prove analogous statements for the complexity classes VF, VBP, and VP. The density of VNP \ VNPC holds for several different reduction notions: p-projections, border p-projections, c-reductions, and border c-reductions. We compare the relationship of the completeness notions under these reductions and separate most of the corresponding sets. Border reduction notions were introduced by Bringmann, Ikenmeyer, and Zuiddam (JACM 2018). Our paper is the first structured study of border reduction notions.