Improved Hardness of BDD and SVP Under Gap-(S)ETH

TL;DR

This paper establishes stronger computational hardness results for lattice problems BDD and SVP in various $ extit{l}_p$ norms, based on assumptions related to the Gap-ETH hypothesis, indicating no efficient algorithms exist under these conjectures.

Contribution

It provides new fine-grained hardness bounds for lattice problems in all $ extit{l}_p$ norms, extending previous results and connecting them to Gap-(S)ETH assumptions.

Findings

No $2^{o(n)}$-time algorithms for certain BDD problems for all $p$ in $[1, \infty)$.

No $2^{o(n)}$-time algorithms for $ extit{l}_p$-SVP for large $p$, assuming Gap-SETH.

Explicit bounds on approximation factors and running times under various hypotheses.

Abstract

We show improved fine-grained hardness of two key lattice problems in the $\ell_p$ norm: Bounded Distance Decoding to within an $\alpha$ factor of the minimum distance ($\mathrm{BDD}_{p, \alpha}$) and the (decisional) $\gamma$-approximate Shortest Vector Problem ($\mathrm{SVP}_{p,\gamma}$), assuming variants of the Gap (Strong) Exponential Time Hypothesis (Gap-(S)ETH). Specifically, we show: 1. For all $p \in [1, \infty)$, there is no $2^{o(n)}$-time algorithm for $\mathrm{BDD}_{p, \alpha}$ for any constant $\alpha > \alpha_\mathsf{kn}$, where $\alpha_\mathsf{kn} = 2^{-c_\mathsf{kn}}$ and $c_\mathsf{kn}$ is the $\ell_2$ kissing-number constant, assuming $c_\mathsf{kn} > 0$ and that non-uniform Gap-ETH holds. 2. For all $p \in [1, \infty)$, there is no $2^{o(n)}$-time algorithm for $\mathrm{BDD}_{p, \alpha}$ for any constant $\alpha > \alpha^\ddagger_p$, where $\alpha^\ddagger_p$ is explicit and satisfies $\alpha^\ddagger_p = 1$ for $1 \leq p \leq 2$, $\alpha^\ddagger_p < 1$ for all $p > 2$, and $\alpha^\ddagger_p \to 1/2$ as $p \to \infty$, unless randomized Gap-ETH is false. 3. For all $p \in [1, \infty) \setminus 2 \mathbb{Z}$ and all $C > 1$, there is no $2^{n/C}$-time algorithm for $\mathrm{BDD}_{p, \alpha}$ for any constant $\alpha > \alpha^\dagger_{p, C}$, where $\alpha^\dagger_{p, C}$ is explicit and satisfies $\alpha^\dagger_{p, C} \to 1$ as $C \to \infty$ for any fixed $p \in [1, \infty)$, assuming $c_\mathsf{kn} > 0$ and that non-uniform Gap-SETH holds. 4. For all $p > p_0 \approx 2.1397$, $p \notin 2\mathbb{Z}$, and all $C > C_p$, there is no $2^{n/C}$-time algorithm for $\mathrm{SVP}_{p, \gamma}$ for some constant $\gamma > 1$, where $C_p > 1$ is explicit and satisfies $C_p \to 1$ as $p \to \infty$, unless randomized Gap-SETH is false.