Local Correction of Linear Functions over the Boolean Cube

Abstract: We consider the task of locally correcting, and locally list-correcting, multivariate linear functions over the domain ${0,1}^n$ over arbitrary fields and more generally Abelian groups. Such functions form error-correcting codes of relative distance $1/2$ and we give local-correction algorithms correcting up to nearly $1/4$-fraction errors making $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(\log n)$ queries. This query complexity is optimal up to $\mathrm{poly}(\log\log n)$ factors. We also give local list-correcting algorithms correcting $(1/2 - \varepsilon)$-fraction errors with $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}{\varepsilon}(\log n)$ queries. These results may be viewed as natural generalizations of the classical work of Goldreich and Levin whose work addresses the special case where the underlying group is $\mathbb{Z}_2$. By extending to the case where the underlying group is, say, the reals, we give the first non-trivial locally correctable codes (LCCs) over the reals (with query complexity being sublinear in the dimension (also known as message length)). The central challenge in constructing the local corrector is constructing "nearly balanced vectors" over ${-1,1}^n$ that span $1^n$ -- we show how to construct $\mathcal{O}(\log n)$ vectors that do so, with entries in each vector summing to $\pm1$. The challenge to the local-list-correction algorithms, given the local corrector, is principally combinatorial, i.e., in proving that the number of linear functions within any Hamming ball of radius $(1/2-\varepsilon)$ is $\mathcal{O}{\varepsilon}(1)$. Getting this general result covering every Abelian group requires integrating a variety of known methods with some new combinatorial ingredients analyzing the structural properties of codewords that lie within small Hamming balls.