Near NP-Completeness for Detecting p-adic Rational Roots in One Variable

We show that deciding whether a sparse univariate polynomial has a p-adic rational root can be done in NP for most inputs. We also prove a polynomial-time upper bound for trinomials with suitably generic p-adic Newton polygon. We thus improve the best previous complexity upper bound of EXPTIME. We also prove an unconditional complexity lower bound of NP-hardness with respect to randomized reductions for general univariate polynomials. The best previous lower bound assumed an unproved hypothesis on the distribution of primes in arithmetic progression. We also discuss how our results complement analogous results over the real numbers.Comment: 8 pages in 2 column format, 1 illustration. Submitted to a conferenc

Computing zeta functions of arithmetic schemes

We present new algorithms for computing zeta functions of algebraic varieties over finite fields. In particular, let X be an arithmetic scheme (scheme of finite type over Z), and for a prime p let zeta_{X_p}(s) be the local factor of its zeta function. We present an algorithm that computes zeta_{X_p}(s) for a single prime p in time p^(1/2+o(1)), and another algorithm that computes zeta_{X_p}(s) for all primes p < N in time N (log N)^(3+o(1)). These generalise previous results of the author from hyperelliptic curves to completely arbitrary varieties.Comment: 23 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Societ

Degenerations and limit Frobenius structures in rigid cohomology

We introduce a "limiting Frobenius structure" attached to any degeneration of projective varieties over a finite field of characteristic p which satisfies a p-adic lifting assumption. Our limiting Frobenius structure is shown to be effectively computable in an appropriate sense for a degeneration of projective hypersurfaces. We conjecture that the limiting Frobenius structure relates to the rigid cohomology of a semistable limit of the degeneration through an analogue of the Clemens-Schmidt exact sequence. Our construction is illustrated, and conjecture supported, by a selection of explicit examples.Comment: 41 page