35 research outputs found
Complexity and Unsolvability Properties of Nilpotency
A nonassociative algebra is nilpotent if there is some n such that the product of any n elements, no matter how they are associated, is zero. Several related, but more general, notions are left nilpotency, solvability, local nilpotency, and nillity. First the complexity of several decision problems for these properties is examined. In finite-dimensional algebras over a finite field it is shown that solvability and nilpotency can be decided in polynomial time. Over Q, nilpotency can be decided in polynomial time, while the algorithm for testing solvability uses a polynomial number of arithmetic operations, but is not polynomial time. Also presented is a polynomial time probabilistic algorithm for deciding left nillity. Then a problem involving algebras given by generators and relations is considered and shown to be NP-complete. Finally, a relation between local left nilpotency and a set of natural numbers that is 1-complete for the class in the arithmetic hierarchy of recursion theory is demonstrated
Recent advances in algorithmic problems for semigroups
In this article we survey recent progress in the algorithmic theory of matrix
semigroups. The main objective in this area of study is to construct algorithms
that decide various properties of finitely generated subsemigroups of an
infinite group , often represented as a matrix group. Such problems might
not be decidable in general. In fact, they gave rise to some of the earliest
undecidability results in algorithmic theory. However, the situation changes
when the group satisfies additional constraints. In this survey, we give an
overview of the decidability and the complexity of several algorithmic problems
in the cases where is a low-dimensional matrix group, or a group with
additional structures such as commutativity, nilpotency and solvability.Comment: survey article for SIGLOG New
ALGORITHMIC PROBLEMS IN ENGEL GROUPS AND CRYPTOGRAPHIC APPLICATIONS
The theory of Engel groups plays an important role in group theory since they are closely related to the Burnside problems. In this survey we consider several classical and novel algorithmic problems for Engel groups and propose several open problems. We study these problems with a view towards applications to cryptog- raphy
TC^0 Circuits for Algorithmic Problems in Nilpotent Groups
Recently, Macdonald et. al. showed that many algorithmic problems for finitely generated nilpotent groups including computation of normal forms, the subgroup membership problem, the conjugacy problem, and computation of subgroup presentations can be done in LOGSPACE. Here we follow their approach and show that all these problems are complete for the uniform circuit class TC^0 - uniformly for all r-generated nilpotent groups of class at most c for fixed r and c.
Moreover, if we allow a certain binary representation of the inputs, then the word problem and computation of normal forms is still in uniform TC^0, while all the other problems we examine are shown to be TC^0-Turing reducible to the problem of computing greatest common divisors and expressing them as linear combinations
Probabilistic cellular automata, invariant measures, and perfect sampling
A probabilistic cellular automaton (PCA) can be viewed as a Markov chain. The
cells are updated synchronously and independently, according to a distribution
depending on a finite neighborhood. We investigate the ergodicity of this
Markov chain. A classical cellular automaton is a particular case of PCA. For a
1-dimensional cellular automaton, we prove that ergodicity is equivalent to
nilpotency, and is therefore undecidable. We then propose an efficient perfect
sampling algorithm for the invariant measure of an ergodic PCA. Our algorithm
does not assume any monotonicity property of the local rule. It is based on a
bounding process which is shown to be also a PCA. Last, we focus on the PCA
Majority, whose asymptotic behavior is unknown, and perform numerical
experiments using the perfect sampling procedure
The Complexity of Knapsack Problems in Wreath Products
We prove new complexity results for computational problems in certain wreath
products of groups and (as an application) for free solvable group. For a
finitely generated group we study the so-called power word problem (does a
given expression , where are
words over the group generators and are binary encoded
integers, evaluate to the group identity?) and knapsack problem (does a given
equation , where are words
over the group generators and are variables, has a solution in
the natural numbers). We prove that the power word problem for wreath products
of the form with nilpotent and iterated wreath products
of free abelian groups belongs to . As an application of the
latter, the power word problem for free solvable groups is in .
On the other hand we show that for wreath products , where
is a so called uniformly strongly efficiently non-solvable group (which
form a large subclass of non-solvable groups), the power word problem is
-hard. For the knapsack problem we show
-completeness for iterated wreath products of free abelian groups
and hence free solvable groups. Moreover, the knapsack problem for every wreath
product , where is uniformly efficiently non-solvable, is
-hard