16 research outputs found
Solution sets for equations over free groups are EDT0L languages
© World Scientific Publishing Company. We show that, given an equation over a finitely generated free group, the set of all solutions in reduced words forms an effectively constructible EDT0L language. In particular, the set of all solutions in reduced words is an indexed language in the sense of Aho. The language characterization we give, as well as further questions about the existence or finiteness of solutions, follow from our explicit construction of a finite directed graph which encodes all the solutions. Our result incorporates the recently invented recompression technique of Jez, and a new way to integrate solutions of linear Diophantine equations into the process. As a byproduct of our techniques, we improve the complexity from quadratic nondeterministic space in previous works to NSPACE(n log n) here
More Than 1700 Years of Word Equations
Geometry and Diophantine equations have been ever-present in mathematics.
Diophantus of Alexandria was born in the 3rd century (as far as we know), but a
systematic mathematical study of word equations began only in the 20th century.
So, the title of the present article does not seem to be justified at all.
However, a linear Diophantine equation can be viewed as a special case of a
system of word equations over a unary alphabet, and, more importantly, a word
equation can be viewed as a special case of a Diophantine equation. Hence, the
problem WordEquations: "Is a given word equation solvable?" is intimately
related to Hilbert's 10th problem on the solvability of Diophantine equations.
This became clear to the Russian school of mathematics at the latest in the mid
1960s, after which a systematic study of that relation began.
Here, we review some recent developments which led to an amazingly simple
decision procedure for WordEquations, and to the description of the set of all
solutions as an EDT0L language.Comment: The paper will appear as an invited address in the LNCS proceedings
of CAI 2015, Stuttgart, Germany, September 1 - 4, 201
Equations over free inverse monoids with idempotent variables
We introduce the notion of idempotent variables for studying equations in
inverse monoids.
It is proved that it is decidable in singly exponential time (DEXPTIME)
whether a system of equations in idempotent variables over a free inverse
monoid has a solution. The result is proved by a direct reduction to solve
language equations with one-sided concatenation and a known complexity result
by Baader and Narendran: Unification of concept terms in description logics,
2001. We also show that the problem becomes DEXPTIME hard , as soon as the
quotient group of the free inverse monoid has rank at least two.
Decidability for systems of typed equations over a free inverse monoid with
one irreducible variable and at least one unbalanced equation is proved with
the same complexity for the upper bound.
Our results improve known complexity bounds by Deis, Meakin, and Senizergues:
Equations in free inverse monoids, 2007.
Our results also apply to larger families of equations where no decidability
has been previously known.Comment: 28 pages. The conference version of this paper appeared in the
proceedings of 10th International Computer Science Symposium in Russia, CSR
2015, Listvyanka, Russia, July 13-17, 2015. Springer LNCS 9139, pp. 173-188
(2015
Solving equations in class 2 nilpotent groups
We construct an algorithm to decide if in a class nilpotent group an
equation that contains a variable such that the exponent sum
of within is non-zero admits a solution. Besides the existence of
such an in , there are no restrictions on any other variables. We
do this by associating the equation to a system of integer equations and
congruences equivalent to it, and give an algorithm to solve this system. We
also construct an algorithm to decide if any equation in a group that is
virtually the Heisenberg group admits a solution.Comment: 21 pages Fixed error in main theore
Languages, groups and equations
The survey provides an overview of the work done in the last 10 years to
characterise solutions to equations in groups in terms of formal languages. We
begin with the work of Ciobanu, Diekert and Elder, who showed that solutions to
systems of equations in free groups in terms of reduced words are expressible
as EDT0L languages. We provide a sketch of their algorithm, and describe how
the free group results extend to hyperbolic groups. The characterisation of
solutions as EDT0L languages is very robust, and many group constructions
preserve this, as shown by Levine.
The most recent progress in the area has been made for groups without
negative curvature, such as virtually abelian, the integral Heisenberg group,
or the soluble Baumslag-Solitar groups, where the approaches to describing the
solutions are different from the negative curvature groups. In virtually
abelian groups the solutions sets are in fact rational, and one can obtain them
as -regular sets. In the Heisenberg group producing the solutions to a
single equation reduces to understanding the solutions to quadratic Diophantine
equations and uses number theoretic techniques. In the Baumslag-Solitar groups
the methods are combinatorial, and focus on the interplay of normal forms to
solve particular classes of equations.
In conclusion, EDT0L languages give an effective and simple combinatorial
characterisation of sets of seemingly high complexity in many important classes
of groups.Comment: 26 page
Quadratic Diophantine equations, the Heisenberg group and formal languages
We express the solutions to quadratic equations with two variables in the
ring of integers using EDT0L languages. We use this to show that EDT0L
languages can be used to describe the solutions to one-variable equations in
the Heisenberg group. This is done by reducing the question of solving a
one-variable equation in the Heisenberg group to solving an equation in the
ring of integers, exploiting the strong link between the ring of integers and
nilpotent groups.Comment: 33 page