Abstract

The connection between groups and recursive (un)decidability has a long history, going back to the early 1900s. Also, various polynomial-time algorithms have been known in group theory for a long time. However the impact of more general computational complexity (e.g., NP-completeness or PSpace-completeness) has been relatively small and recent. These lectures review a sampling of older facts about algorithmic problems in group theory, and then present more recent results about the connection with complexity: isoperimetric functions and NP; Thompson groups, boolean circuits, and coNP; Thompson monoids and circuit complexity; Thompson groups, reversible computing, and #P; distortion of Thompson groups within Thompson monoids, and one-way permutations. We are especially interested in deep connections between computational complexity and group theory. By “connection ” we do not just mean analyzing the computational complexity of algorithms about groups. We are more interested in algebraic characterizations of complexity classes in terms of group theory, i.e., in finding a “mirror image” of all of complexity theory within group theory. Conversely, we are interested in the computational nature of concepts that appear at first purely algebraic.

Citations