English

The Identity Problem in the special affine group of $\mathbb{Z}^2$

Group Theory 2025-06-11 v8 Computational Complexity Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

We consider semigroup algorithmic problems in the Special Affine group SA(2,Z)=Z2SL(2,Z)\mathsf{SA}(2, \mathbb{Z}) = \mathbb{Z}^2 \rtimes \mathsf{SL}(2, \mathbb{Z}), which is the group of affine transformations of the lattice Z2\mathbb{Z}^2 that preserve orientation. Our paper focuses on two decision problems introduced by Choffrut and Karhum\"{a}ki (2005): the Identity Problem (does a semigroup contain a neutral element?) and the Group Problem (is a semigroup a group?) for finitely generated sub-semigroups of SA(2,Z)\mathsf{SA}(2, \mathbb{Z}). We show that both problems are decidable and NP-complete. Since SL(2,Z)SA(2,Z)SL(3,Z)\mathsf{SL}(2, \mathbb{Z}) \leq \mathsf{SA}(2, \mathbb{Z}) \leq \mathsf{SL}(3, \mathbb{Z}), our result extends that of Bell, Hirvensalo and Potapov (2017) on the NP-completeness of both problems in SL(2,Z)\mathsf{SL}(2, \mathbb{Z}), and contributes a first step towards the open problems in SL(3,Z)\mathsf{SL}(3, \mathbb{Z}).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.09502,
  title  = {The Identity Problem in the special affine group of $\mathbb{Z}^2$},
  author = {Ruiwen Dong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.09502},
  year   = {2025}
}