Evaluating Matrix Circuits

The circuit evaluation problem (also known as the compressed word problem) for finitely generated linear groups is studied. The best upper bound for this problem is $\mathsf{coRP}$, which is shown by a reduction to polynomial identity testing. Conversely, the compressed word problem for the linear group $\mathsf{SL}_3(\mathbb{Z})$ is equivalent to polynomial identity testing. In the paper, it is shown that the compressed word problem for every finitely generated nilpotent group is in $\mathsf{DET} \subseteq \mathsf{NC}^2$. Within the larger class of polycyclic groups we find examples where the compressed word problem is at least as hard as polynomial identity testing for skew arithmetic circuits

Circuit Evaluation for Finite Semirings

The circuit evaluation problem for finite semirings is considered, where semirings are not assumed to have an additive or multiplicative identity. The following dichotomy is shown: If a finite semiring R (i) has a solvable multiplicative semigroup and (ii) does not contain a subsemiring with an additive identity 0 and a multiplicative identity 1 != 0, then its circuit evaluation problem is in the complexity class DET (which is contained in NC^2). In all other cases, the circuit evaluation problem is P-complete

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