Lijie Chen
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Research Interests: Theoretical Computer Science
I have a broad interest in theoretical computer science. In particular, I am interested in Computational Complexity and Fine-Grained Complexity.
I am currently a third year graduate student at MIT, and I am very fortunate to be advised by Ryan Williams. Prior to that, I received my bachelor's degree from Yao Class at Tsinghua University.
At Tsinghua University, I was advised by Prof. Jian Li, working on Multi-Armed Bandits. During the Spring of 2016, I was visiting MIT, working under the supervision of Prof. Scott Aaronson on Quantum Complexity. [CV]
I was visiting Simons Institute in the Fall of 2018.
Selected Publications
Strong Average-Case Circuit Lower Bounds from Non-trivial Derandomization
Lijie Chen, Hanlin Ren
Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC 2020)
[eccc]
[slides at Simons (for complexity theorist)] [slides at IAS (intense version)] [slides at Warwick (lightweight version)]
Beyond Natural Proofs: Hardness Magnification and Locality
Lijie Chen, Shuichi Hirahara, Igor Oliveira, Jan Pich, Ninad Rajgopal, Rahul Santhanam
Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS 2020)
[eccc] [arxiv]
[notes by Igor]
Efficient Construction of Rigid Matrices Using an NP Oracle
Josh Alman, Lijie Chen
Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2019)
Machtey Award for Best Student Paper
Invited to the SICOMP Special Issue for FOCS 2019
[pdf] [slides] [Oded's choice]
Non-deterministic Quasi-Polynomial Time is Average-case Hard for ACC Circuits
Lijie Chen
[Talk at UT Austin's Theory Seminar]
Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2019)
Invited to the SICOMP Special Issue for FOCS 2019
[eccc] [Oded's choice]
We proved that there is a language in NQP (non-deterministic quasi-polynomial time) which cannot be 12+1polylog(n) approximated by polynomial-size ACC^0 circuits. Our method can also be used to prove inapproximability results for other circuit class if non-trivial SAT (or GAP-UNSAT) algorithms for them are discovered. One interesting remark is that the proof crucially relies on Barrington's theorem.
Bootstrapping Results for Threshold Circuits “Just Beyond” Known Lower Bounds
Lijie Chen, Roei Tell
Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC 2019)
Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award
[eccc] [Oded's choice]
On The Hardness of Approximate and Exact (Bichromatic) Maximum Inner Product
Lijie Chen
Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2018)
Invited to the Toc Special Issue for CCC 2018
[eccc] [arxiv] [slides] [draft of journal version]
We showed (among many other things) finding the furthest pair among n points in 2^(log* n) dimensional Euclidian space
requires essentialy n^2 time under SETH. We also use the sqrt(n) BQP communication protocol for Set-Disjointness to establish
inapproximbility results for problems in P.
Complexity-Theoretic Foundations of Quantum Supremacy Experiments
Scott Aaronson, Lijie Chen
Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2017)
Invited to the Toc Special Issue for CCC 2017
[eccc] [arxiv] [slides]
We studied the general theoretical foundations for demonstrating “quantum supremacy” with near-term quantum devices.
Submitted / Manuscripts
On Exponential-Time Hypotheses, Derandomization, and Circuit Lower Bounds
Lijie Chen, Ron Rothblum, Roei Tell, Eylon Yogev
[eccc]