Computer Science/Discrete Mathematics Seminar II

We introduce a new graph parameter, called the rothendieck constant of a graph. This parameter is a generalization of the classical Grothendieck constant; and it is equal to an integrality gap of a certain SDP problem, which has various algorithmic applications. Our results improve a recent result of Kashin and Szarek on Gram matrices of uniformly bounded functions, and settle a problem of Megretski and of Charikar and Wirth. Noga Alon described the motivation of the problem and our results at the members seminar on Monday, Jan 31. In my talk, I will give proofs of these results.