478 research outputs found

    Knapsack Problems in Groups

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    We generalize the classical knapsack and subset sum problems to arbitrary groups and study the computational complexity of these new problems. We show that these problems, as well as the bounded submonoid membership problem, are P-time decidable in hyperbolic groups and give various examples of finitely presented groups where the subset sum problem is NP-complete.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figure

    Exponent equations in HNN-extensions

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    We consider exponent equations in finitely generated groups. These are equations, where the variables appear as exponents of group elements and take values from the natural numbers. Solvability of such (systems of) equations has been intensively studied for various classes of groups in recent years. In many cases, it turns out that the set of all solutions on an exponent equation is a semilinear set that can be constructed effectively. Such groups are called knapsack semilinear. Examples of knapsack semilinear groups are hyperbolic groups, virtually special groups, co-context-free groups and free solvable groups. Moreover, knapsack semilinearity is preserved by many group theoretic constructions, e.g., finite extensions, graph products, wreath products, amalgamated free products with finite amalgamated subgroups, and HNN-extensions with finite associated subgroups. On the other hand, arbitrary HNN-extensions do not preserve knapsack semilinearity. In this paper, we consider the knapsack semilinearity of HNN-extensions, where the stable letter tt acts trivially by conjugation on the associated subgroup AA of the base group GG. We show that under some additional technical conditions, knapsack semilinearity transfers from base group GG to the HNN-extension HH. These additional technical conditions are satisfied in many cases, e.g., when AA is a centralizer in GG or AA is a quasiconvex subgroup of the hyperbolic group GG.Comment: A short version appeared in Proceedings of ISSAC 202

    Knapsack problems in products of groups

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    The classic knapsack and related problems have natural generalizations to arbitrary (non-commutative) groups, collectively called knapsack-type problems in groups. We study the effect of free and direct products on their time complexity. We show that free products in certain sense preserve time complexity of knapsack-type problems, while direct products may amplify it. Our methods allow to obtain complexity results for rational subset membership problem in amalgamated free products over finite subgroups.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures. Updated to include more general results, mostly in Section

    Compressed Decision Problems in Hyperbolic Groups

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    We prove that the compressed word problem and the compressed simultaneous conjugacy problem are solvable in polynomial time in hyperbolic groups. In such problems, group elements are input as words defined by straight-line programs defined over a finite generating set for the group. We prove also that, for any infinite hyperbolic group G, the compressed knapsack problem in G is NP-complete
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