Sensitivity versus block sensitivity of Boolean functions

Abstract

Determining the maximal separation between sensitivity and block sensitivity of Boolean functions is of interest for computational complexity theory. We construct a sequence of Boolean functions with bs(f) = 1/2 s(f)^2 + 1/2 s(f). The best known separation previously was bs(f) = 1/2 s(f)^2 due to Rubinstein. We also report results of computer search for functions with at most 12 variables.