Extracting randomness from samplable distributions

The standard notion of a randomness extractor is a procedure which converts any weak source of randomness into an almost uniform distribution. The conversion necessarily uses a small amount of pure randomness, which can be eliminated by complete enumeration in some, but not all, applications. We consider the problem of deterministically converting a weak source of randomness into an almost uniform distribution. Previously, deterministic extraction procedures were known only for sources satisfying strong independence requirements. We look at sources which are samplable, i.e. can be generated by an efficient sampling algorithm. We seek an efficient deterministic procedure that, given a sample from any samplable distribution of sufficiently large min-entropy, gives an almost uniformly distributed output. We explore the conditions under which such deterministic extractors exist. We observe that no deterministic extractor exists if the sampler is allowed to use more computational resources than the extractor. On the other hand, if the extractor is allowed (polynomially) more resources than the sampler, we show that deterministic extraction becomes possible. This is true unconditionally in the nonuniform setting (i.e., when the extractor can be computed by a small circuit), and (necessarily) relies on complexity assumptions in the uniform setting.