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New Lower Bounds For Essential Covers Of The Cube

An essential cover of the vertices of the $n$-cube $\{0,1\}^n$ by hyperplanes is a minimal covering where no hyperplane is redundant and every variable appears in the equation of at least one hyperplane. Linial and Radhakrishnan gave a construction of an essential cover with $\lceil \frac{n}{2} \rceil + 1$ hyperplanes and showed that $Ω(\sqrt{n})$ hyperplanes are required. Recently, Yehuda and Yehudayoff improved the lower bound by showing that any essential cover of the $n$-cube contains at least $Ω(n^{0.52})$ hyperplanes. In this paper, building on the method of Yehuda and Yehudayoff, we prove that $Ω\left( \frac{n^{5/9}}{(\log n)^{4/9}} \right)$ hyperplanes are needed.