English

Knottedness is in NP, modulo GRH

Geometric Topology 2019-09-16 v2 Computational Complexity

Abstract

Given a tame knot K presented in the form of a knot diagram, we show that the problem of determining whether K is knotted is in the complexity class NP, assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH). In other words, there exists a polynomial-length certificate that can be verified in polynomial time to prove that K is non-trivial. GRH is not needed to believe the certificate, but only to find a short certificate. This result complements the result of Hass, Lagarias, and Pippenger that unknottedness is in NP. Our proof is a corollary of major results of others in algebraic geometry and geometric topology.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1112.0845,
  title  = {Knottedness is in NP, modulo GRH},
  author = {Greg Kuperberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.0845},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

7 pages; minor update

R2 v1 2026-06-21T19:46:09.590Z