We make progress towards this goal by presenting a new linear-time probabilistic proof. For any fixed $\epsilon > 0$, we construct an interactive oracle proof (IOP) that, when used for the satisfiability of an $N$-gate arithmetic circuit, has a prover that uses $O(N)$ field operations and a verifier that uses $O(N^{\epsilon})$ field operations. The sublinear verifier time is achieved in the holographic setting for every circuit (the verifier has oracle access to a linear-size encoding of the circuit that is computable in linear time).
When combined with a linear-time collision-resistant hash function, our IOP immediately leads to an argument system where the prover performs $O(N)$ field operations and hash computations, and the verifier performs $O(N^{\epsilon})$ field operations and hash computations (given a short digest of the $N$-gate circuit).
Category / Keywords: foundations / interactive oracle proofs; tensor codes; succinct arguments Original Publication (with major differences): IACR-TCC-2020 Date: received 14 Nov 2020 Contact author: jbt at zurich ibm com,alexch@berkeley edu Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation Version: 20201115:074602 (All versions of this report) Short URL: ia.cr/2020/1426