English

Knapsack and the power word problem in solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups

Group Theory 2022-10-18 v3

Abstract

We prove that the power word problem for certain metabelian subgroups of GL(2,C)\mathsf{GL}(2,\mathbb{C}) (including the solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups BS(1,q)=a,ttat1=aq\mathsf{BS}(1,q) = \langle a,t \mid t a t^{-1} = a^q \rangle) belongs to the circuit complexity class TC0\mathsf{TC}^0. In the power word problem, the input consists of group elements g1,,gdg_1, \ldots, g_d and binary encoded integers n1,,ndn_1, \ldots, n_d and it is asked whether g1n1gdnd=1g_1^{n_1} \cdots g_d^{n_d} = 1 holds. Moreover, we prove that the knapsack problem for BS(1,q)\mathsf{BS}(1,q) is NP\mathsf{NP}-complete. In the knapsack problem, the input consists of group elements g1,,gd,hg_1, \ldots, g_d,h and it is asked whether the equation g1x1gdxd=hg_1^{x_1} \cdots g_d^{x_d} = h has a solution in Nd\mathbb{N}^d. For the more general case of a system of so-called exponent equations, where the exponent variables xix_i can occur multiple times, we show that solvability is undecidable for BS(1,q)\mathsf{BS}(1,q).

Cite

@article{arxiv.2002.03837,
  title  = {Knapsack and the power word problem in solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups},
  author = {Moses Ganardi and Markus Lohrey and Georg Zetzsche},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.03837},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

A short version appeared in the proceedings of MFCS 2020

R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:36:55.407Z