Improved Monotonicity Testers via Hypercube Embeddings

Abstract

We show improved monotonicity testers for the Boolean hypercube under the $p$-biased measure, as well as over the hypergrid $[m]^n$. Our results are: 1. For any $p\in (0,1)$, for the $p$-biased hypercube we show a non-adaptive tester that makes $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n}/\varepsilon^2)$ queries, accepts monotone functions with probability $1$ and rejects functions that are $\varepsilon$-far from monotone with probability at least $2/3$. 2. For all $m\in\mathbb{N}$, we show an $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n}m^3/\varepsilon^2)$ query monotonicity tester over $[m]^n$. We also establish corresponding directed isoperimetric inequalities in these domains. Previously, the best known tester due to Black, Chakrabarty and Seshadhri had $\Omega(n^{5/6})$ query complexity. Our results are optimal up to poly-logarithmic factors and the dependency on $m$. Our proof uses a notion of monotone embeddings of measures into the Boolean hypercube that can be used to reduce the problem of monotonicity testing over an arbitrary product domains to the Boolean cube. The embedding maps a function over a product domain of dimension $n$ into a function over a Boolean cube of a larger dimension $n'$, while preserving its distance from being monotone; an embedding is considered efficient if $n'$ is not much larger than $n$, and we show how to construct efficient embeddings in the above mentioned settings.