Polylogarithmic-round Interactive Proofs for coNP Collapses the Exponential Hierarchy

It is known [BHZ87] that if every language in coNP has a constant-round interactive proof system, then the polynomial hierarchy collapses. On the other hand, Lund et al. [LFKN92] have shown that #SAT, the #P-complete function that outputs the number of satisfying assignments of a Boolean formula, can be computed by a linear-round interactive protocol. As a consequence, the coNP-complete set SAT has a proof system with linear rounds of interaction. We show that if every set in coNP has a polylogarithmic-round interactive protocol then the exponential hierarchy collapses to the third level. In order to prove this, we obtain an exponential version of Yap’s result [Yap83], and improve upon an exponential version of the Karp-Lipton theorem [KL80], obtained first by Buhrman and Homer [BH92].