English

The pseudo-Anosov and conjugacy problems are in $\textbf{NP} \cap \textbf{co-NP}$

Geometric Topology 2016-05-03 v3

Abstract

For a fixed marked surface SS, we construct polynomial bounds on the periodic and preperiodic lengths of the maximal splitting sequences of a projectively invariant measured train track. We give two consequences of these bounds. Firstly, that the problem of deciding whether a mapping class is pseudo-Anosov lies in NP\textbf{NP}. This is dual to the previously known result that the pseudo-Anosov problem is in co-NP\textbf{co-NP}. Secondly, that the problem of deciding whether two mapping classes are conjugate lies in co-NP\textbf{co-NP}. Similarly, this is the dual to the previously known result that the conjugacy problem is in NP\textbf{NP}. As usual, in both cases we immediately obtain exponential time solutions to these problems. A version of these algorithms have been implemented as part of flipper.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1410.1358,
  title  = {The pseudo-Anosov and conjugacy problems are in $\textbf{NP} \cap \textbf{co-NP}$},
  author = {Mark C. Bell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.1358},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

26 pages, 6 figures, updated abstract, introduction and added section detailing the conjugacy problem