Approximating satisfiability transition by suppressing fluctuations

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Using methods and ideas from statistical mechanics, we propose a simple method for obtaining rigorous upper bounds for satisfiability transition in random boolean expressions composed of N variables and M clauses with K variables per clause. Determining the location of satisfiability threshold αc=M/N for a number of difficult combinatorial problems is a major open problem in the theory of random graphs. The method is based on identification of the core -- a subexpression (subgraph) that has the same satisfiability properties as the original expression. We formulate self-consistency equations that determine macroscopic parameters of the core and compute an improved annealing bound. We illustrate the method for three sample problems: K-XOR-SAT, K-SAT and positive 1-in-K-SAT.