Abstract. We study the computational complexity of determining whether the zero matrix belongs to a finitely generated semigroup of two dimensional integer matrices (the mortality problem). We show that this problem is NP-hard to decide in the two-dimensional case by using a new encoding and properties of the projective special linear group. The decidability of the mortality problem in two dimensions remains a long standing open problem although in dimension three is known to be undecidable as was shown by Paterson in 1970. We also show a lower bound on the minimum length solution to the Mortality Problem, which is exponential in the number of matrices of the generator set and the maximal element of the matrices.
We study decidability and complexity questions related to a continuous analogue of the Skolem-Pisot problem concerning the zeros and nonnegativity of a linear recurrent sequence. In particular, we show that the continuous version of the nonnegativity problem is NP-hard in general and we show that the presence of a zero is decidable for several subcases, including instances of depth two or less, although the decidability in general is left open. The problems may also be stated as reachability problems related to real zeros of exponential polynomials or solutions to initial value problems of linear differential equations, which are interesting problems in their own right.
We show a reduction of Hilbert's tenth problem to the solvability of the matrix equationwhere Z is the zero matrix, thus proving that the solvability of the equation is undecidable. This is in contrast to the case whereby the matrix semigroup is commutative in which the solvability of the same equation was shown to be decidable in general.The restricted problem where k = 2 for commutative matrices is known as the "A-B-C Problem" and we show that this problem is decidable even for a pair of non-commutative matrices over an algebraic number field.
Abstract. We examine computational problems on quaternion matrix and rotation semigroups. It is shown that in the ultimate case of quaternion matrices, in which multiplication is still associative, most of the decision problems for matrix semigroups are undecidable in dimension two. The geometric interpretation of matrix problems over quaternions is presented in terms of rotation problems for the 2 and 3-sphere. In particular, we show that the reachability of the rotation problem is undecidable on the 3-sphere and other rotation problems can be formulated as matrix problems over complex and hypercomplex numbers.
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