P versus NP problem

If the solution to a problem can be quickly verified by a computer, can the computer also solve that problem quickly?
The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. Informally, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified by a computer can also be quickly solved by a computer. It was introduced in 1971 by Stephen Cook in his seminal paper "The complexity of theorem proving procedures"[2] and is considered by many to be the most important open problem in the field.[3] It is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute to carry a US$1,000,000 prize for the first correct solution. The informal term quickly used above means the existence of an algorithm for the task that runs in polynomial time. The general class of questions for which some algorithm can provide an answer in polynomial time is called "class P" or just "P". For some questions, there is no known way to find an answer quickly, but if one is provided with information showing what the answer is, it may be possible to verify the answer quickly. The class of questions for which an answer can be verified in polynomial time is called NP. Consider the subset sum problem, an example of a problem that is easy to verify, but whose answer may be difficult to compute. Given a set ofintegers, does some nonempty subset of them sum to 0? For instance, does a subset of the set {2, 3, 15, 14, 7, 10} add up to 0? The answer "yes, because {2, 3, 10, 15} adds up to zero" can be quickly verified with three additions. However, there is no known algorithm to find such a subset in polynomial time (there is one, however, in exponential time, which consists of 2n-1 tries), and indeed such an algorithm can only exist if P =NP; hence this problem is in NP (quickly checkable) but not necessarily in P (quickly solvable). An answer to the P = NP question would determine whether problems that can be verified in polynomial time, like the subsetsum problem, can also be solved in polynomial time. If it turned out that P NP, it would mean that there are problems in NP (such as NP-complete problems) that are harder to compute than to verify: they could not be solved in polynomial time, but the answer could be verified in polynomial time. Aside from being an important problem in computational theory, a proof either way would have profound implications for mathematics, cryptography, algorithm research, artificial intelligence, game theory, multimedia processing and many other fields.

Context[edit]
The relation between the complexity classes P and NP is studied in computational complexity theory, the part of the theory of computation dealing with the resources required during computation to solve a given problem. The most common resources are time (how many steps it takes to solve a problem) and space (how much memory it takes to solve a problem). In such analysis, a model of the computer for which time must be analyzed is required. Typically such models assume that the computer is deterministic (given the computer's present state and any inputs, there is only one possible action that the computer might take) and sequential (it performs actions one after the other). In this theory, the class P consists of all those decision problems (defined below) that can be solved on a deterministic sequential machine in an amount of time that is polynomial in the size of the input; the class NP consists of all those decision problems whose positive solutions can be verified in polynomial time given the right information, or equivalently, whose

solution can be found in polynomial time on a non-deterministic machine.[4] Clearly, P NP. Arguably the biggest open question in theoretical computer science concerns the relationship between those two classes: Is P equal to NP? In a 2002 poll of 100 researchers, 61 believed the answer to be no, 9 believed the answer is yes, and 22 were unsure; 8 believed the question may be independent of the currently accepted axioms and therefore is impossible to prove or disprove.[5]

NP-complete[edit]

Euler diagram for P, NP, NP-complete, and NP-hard set of problems

Main article: NP-complete To attack the P = NP question the concept of NP-completeness is very useful. NP-complete problems are a set of problems to each of which any other NP-problem can be reduced in polynomial time, and whose solution may still be verified in polynomial time. That is, anyNP problem can be transformed into any of the NP-complete problems. Informally, an NPcomplete problem is an NP problem that is at least as "tough" as any other problem in NP. NP-hard problems are those at least as hard as NP problems, i.e., all NP problems can be reduced (in polynomial time) to them. NP-hard problems need not be in NP, i.e., they need not have solutions verifiable in polynomial time. For instance, the boolean satisfiability problem is NP-complete by the CookLevin theorem, so any instance of any problem in NP can be transformed mechanically into an instance of the boolean satisfiability problem in polynomial time. The boolean satisfiability problem is one of many such NP-complete problems. If any NP-complete problem is in P, then it would follow that P = NP. Unfortunately, many important problems have been shown to be NP-complete, and not a single fast algorithm for any of them is known. Based on the definition alone it is not obvious that NP-complete problems exist. A trivial and contrived NP-complete problem can be formulated as: given a description of a Turing machine M guaranteed to halt in polynomial time, does there exist a polynomial-size input that M will accept?[6] It is in NP because (given an input) it is simple to check whether M accepts the input by simulating M; it is NP-complete because the verifier for any particular instance of a problem in NP can be encoded as a polynomial-time machine M that takes the solution to be verified as input. Then the question of whether the instance is a yes or no instance is determined by whether a valid input exists. The first natural problem proven to be NP-complete was the boolean satisfiability problem. As noted above, this is the Cook Levin theorem; its proof that satisfiability is NP-complete contains technical details about Turing machines as they relate to the definition of NP. However, after this problem was proved to be NP-complete, proof by reduction provided a simpler way

to show that many other problems are also NP-complete, including the subset-sum problem discussed earlier. Thus, a vast class of seemingly unrelated problems are all reducible to one another, and are in a sense "the same problem".

Harder problems[edit]
See also: Complexity class Although it is unknown whether P = NP, problems outside of P are known. A number of succinct problems (problems that operate not on normal input, but on a computational description of the input) are known to be EXPTIME-complete. Because it can be shown that P EXPTIME, these problems are outside P, and so require more than polynomial time. In fact, by the time hierarchy theorem, they cannot be solved in significantly less than exponential time. Examples include finding a perfect strategy for chess (on an N N board)[7] and some other board games.[8] The problem of deciding the truth of a statement in Presburger arithmetic requires even more time. Fischer and Rabin proved in 1974 that every algorithm that decides the truth of Presburger statements has a runtime of at least for some constant c. Here, n is the length of the Presburger statement. Hence, the problem is known to need

more than exponential run time. Even more difficult are the undecidable problems, such as the halting problem. They cannot be completely solved by any algorithm, in the sense that for any particular algorithm there is at least one input for which that algorithm will not produce the right answer; it will either produce the wrong answer, finish without giving a conclusive answer, or otherwise run forever without producing any answer at all.

Problems in NP not known to be in P or NP-complete[edit]

Main article: NP-intermediate It was shown by Ladner that if P NP then there exist problems in NP that are neither in P nor NP-complete.[1] Such problems are called NP-intermediate problems. The graph isomorphism problem, the discrete logarithm problem and the integer factorization problem are examples of problems believed to be NP-intermediate. They are some of the very few NP problems not known to be in P or to be NP-complete. The graph isomorphism problem is the computational problem of determining whether two finite graphs are isomorphic. An important unsolved problem in complexity theory is whether the graph isomorphism problem is in P, NP-complete, or NPintermediate. The answer is not known, but it is believed that the problem is at least not NP-complete.[9] If graph isomorphism is NP-complete, the polynomial time hierarchy collapses to its second level.[10] Since it is widely believed that the polynomial hierarchy does not collapse to any finite level, it is believed that graph isomorphism is not NP-complete. The best algorithm for this problem, due to Laszlo Babai and Eugene Luks has run time 2O(nlog(n)) for graphs with n vertices. The integer factorization problem is the computational problem of determining the prime factorization of a given integer. Phrased as a decision problem, it is the problem of deciding whether the input has a factor less than k. No efficient integer factorization algorithm is known, and this fact forms the basis of several modern cryptographic systems, such as the RSA algorithm. The integer factorization problem is in NP and in co-NP (and even in UP and co-UP[11]). If the problem is NP-complete, the polynomial time hierarchy will collapse to its first level (i.e., NP = co-NP). The best known algorithm for integer factorization is the general number field sieve, which takes expected time

to factor an n-bit integer. However, the best known quantum algorithm for this problem, Shor's algorithm, does run in polynomial time. Unfortunately, this fact doesn't say much about where the problem lies with respect to non-quantum complexity classes.

Does P mean "easy"?[edit]

The graph shows time (average of 100 instances in ms using a 933 MHz Pentium III) vs.problem size for knapsack problems for a state-ofthe-art specialized algorithm. Quadratic fit suggests that empirical algorithmic complexity for instances with 50 10,000 variables is O((log(n))2).[12]

All of the above discussion has assumed that P means "easy" and "not in P" means "hard", an assumption known as Cobham's thesis. It is a common and reasonably accurate assumption in complexity theory; however, it has some caveats. First, it is not always true in practice. A theoretical polynomial algorithm may have extremely large constant factors or exponents thus rendering it impractical. On the other hand, even if a problem is shown to be NP-complete, and even if P NP, there may still be effective approaches to tackling the problem in practice. There are algorithms for many NPcomplete problems, such as the knapsack problem, the traveling salesman problem and the boolean satisfiability problem, that can solve to optimality many real-world instances in reasonable time. The empirical average-case complexity (time vs. problem size) of such algorithms can be surprisingly low. A famous example is the simplex algorithm in linear programming, which works surprisingly well in practice; despite having exponential worst-casetime complexity it runs on par with the best known polynomial-time algorithms.[13] Second, there are types of computations which do not conform to the Turing machine model on which P and NP are defined, such asquantum computation and randomized algorithms.

Reasons to believe P NP[edit]

According to polls,[5][14] many computer scientists believe that P NP. A key reason for this belief is that after decades of studying these problems no one has been able to find a polynomial-time algorithm for any of more than 3000 important known NP-complete problems (see List of NP-complete problems). These algorithms were sought long before the concept of NP-completeness was even defined (Karp's 21 NP-complete problems, among the first found, were all well-known existing problems at the time they were shown to be NP-complete). Furthermore, the result P = NP would imply many other startling results that are currently believed to be false, such as NP = co-NP and P = PH. It is also intuitively argued that the existence of problems that are hard to solve but for which the solutions are easy to verify matches real-world experience.[15]

If P = NP, then the world would be a profoundly different place than we usually assume it to be. There would be no special value in "creative leaps," no fundamental gap between solving a problem and recognizing the solution once it's found. Everyone who could appreciate a symphony would be Mozart; everyone who could follow a step-by-step argument would be Gauss... Scott Aaronson, MIT On the other hand, some researchers believe that there is overconfidence in believing P NP and that researchers should explore proofs of P = NP as well. For example, in 2002 these statements were made:[5] The main argument in favor of P NP is the total lack of fundamental progress in the area of exhaustive search. This is, in my opinion, a very weak argument. The space of algorithms is very large and we are only at the beginning of its exploration. [...] The resolution of Fermat's Last Theorem also shows that very simple questions may be settled only by very deep theories. Moshe Y. Vardi, Rice University Being attached to a speculation is not a good guide to research planning. One should always try both directions of every problem. Prejudice has caused famous mathematicians to fail to solve famous problems whose solution was opposite to their expectations, even though they had developed all the methods required. Anil Nerode, Cornell University

Consequences of the resolution of the problem[edit]

One of the reasons the problem attracts so much attention is the consequences of the answer. Either direction of resolution would advance theory enormously, and perhaps have huge practical consequences as well.

P = NP[edit]
A proof that P = NP could have stunning practical consequences, if the proof leads to efficient methods for solving some of the important problems in NP. It is also possible that a proof would not lead directly to efficient methods, perhaps if the proof is non-constructive, or the size of the bounding polynomial is too big to be efficient in practice. The consequences, both positive and negative, arise since various NP-complete problems are fundamental in many fields. Cryptography, for example, relies on certain problems being difficult. A constructive and efficient solution to an NP-complete problem such as 3-SAT would break most existing cryptosystems including:

public-key cryptography,[16] a foundation for many modern security applications such as secure economic

transactions over the Internet; and

symmetric ciphers such as AES or 3DES,[17] used for the encryption of communications data.

These would need to be modified or replaced by information-theoretically secure solutions. On the other hand, there are enormous positive consequences that would follow from rendering tractable many currently mathematically intractable problems. For instance, many problems inoperations research are NP-complete, such as some types of integer programming, and the travelling salesman problem, to name two of the most famous examples. Efficient solutions to these problems would have enormous implications for logistics. Many other important problems, such as some problems in protein structure prediction, are also NP-complete;[18] if these problems were efficiently solvable it could spur considerable advances in biology.

But such changes may pale in significance compared to the revolution an efficient method for solving NP-complete problems would cause in mathematics itself. According to Stephen Cook,[19] ...it would transform mathematics by allowing a computer to find a formal proof of any theorem which has a proof of a reasonable length, since formal proofs can easily be recognized in polynomial time. Example problems may well include all of the CMI prize problems. Research mathematicians spend their careers trying to prove theorems, and some proofs have taken decades or even centuries to find after problems have been statedfor instance, Fermat's Last Theorem took over three centuries to prove. A method that is guaranteed to find proofs to theorems, should one exist of a "reasonable" size, would essentially end this struggle.

P NP[edit]
A proof that showed that P NP would lack the practical computational benefits of a proof that P = NP, but would nevertheless represent a very significant advance in computational complexity theory and provide guidance for future research. It would allow one to show in a formal way that many common problems cannot be solved efficiently, so that the attention of researchers can be focused on partial solutions or solutions to other problems. Due to widespread belief in P NP, much of this focusing of research has already taken place.[20] Also P NP still leaves open the average-case complexity of hard problems in NP. For example, it is possible that SAT requires exponential time in the worst case, but that almost all randomly selected instances of it are efficiently solvable. Russell Impagliazzo has described five hypothetical "worlds" that could result from different possible resolutions to the average-case complexity question.[21] These range from "Algorithmica", where P = NP and problems like SAT can be solved efficiently in all instances, to "Cryptomania", where P NP and generating hard instances of problems outside P is easy, with three intermediate possibilities reflecting different possible distributions of difficulty over instances of NPhard problems. The "world" where P NP but all problems in NP are tractable in the average case is called "Heuristica" in the paper. A Princeton University workshop in 2009 studied the status of the five worlds.[22]

Results about difficulty of proof[edit]

Although the P = NP? problem itself remains open despite a million-dollar prize and a huge amount of dedicated research, efforts to solve the problem have led to several new techniques. In particular, some of the most fruitful research related to the P = NP problem has been in showing that existing proof techniques are not powerful enough to answer the question, thus suggesting that novel technical approaches are required. As additional evidence for the difficulty of the problem, essentially all known proof techniques in computational complexity theory fall into one of the following classifications, each of which is known to be insufficient to prove that P NP:

Classification

Definition

Relativizing proofs

Imagine a world where every algorithm is allowed to make queries to some fixed subroutine called an oracle, and the running time of the oracle is not counted against the running time of the algorithm. Most proofs (especially classical ones) apply uniformly in a world with oracles regardless of what the oracle does. These proofs are called relativizing. In 1975, Baker, Gill, and Solovay showed that P = NP with respect to some oracles, while P NP for other oracles.[23] Since relativizing proofs can only prove statements that are uniformly true with respect to all possible oracles, this showed that relativizing techniques cannot resolve P = NP.

In 1993, Alexander Razborov and Steven Rudich defined a general class of proof techniques for circuit complexity lower bounds, called natural proofs. At the time all previously known circuit lower bounds were natural, and circuit complexity was considered a very promising approach for resolving P = NP. However, Razborov and Rudich showed that, ifone-way functions exist, then no natural proof method Natural proofs can distinguish between P and NP. Although one-way functions have never been formally proven to exist, most mathematicians believe that they do, and a proof or disproof of their existence would be a much stronger statement than the quantification of P relative to NP. Thus it is unlikely that natural proofs alone can resolve P = NP.

Algebrizing proofs

After the Baker-Gill-Solovay result, new non-relativizing proof techniques were successfully used to prove that IP = PSPACE. However, in 2008, Scott Aaronson and Avi Wigderson showed that the main technical tool used in the IP = PSPACE proof, known as arithmetization, was also insufficient to resolve P = NP.[24]

These barriers are another reason why NP-complete problems are useful: if a polynomial-time algorithm can be demonstrated for an NP-complete problem, this would solve the P = NP problem in a way not excluded by the above results. These barriers have also led some computer scientists to suggest that the P versus NP problem may be independent of standard axiom systems like ZFC (cannot be proved or disproved within them). The interpretation of an independence result could be that either no polynomial-time algorithm exists for any NP-complete problem, and such a proof cannot be constructed in (e.g.) ZFC, or that polynomial-time algorithms for NP-complete problems may exist, but it's impossible to prove in ZFC that such algorithms are correct.[25] However, if it can be shown, using techniques of the sort that are currently known to be applicable, that the problem cannot be decided even with much weaker assumptions extending the Peano axioms (PA) for integer arithmetic, then there would necessarily exist nearly-polynomial-time algorithms for every problem in NP.[26] Therefore, if one believes (as most complexity theorists do) that not all problems in NP have efficient algorithms, it would follow that proofs of independence using those techniques cannot be possible. Additionally, this result implies that proving independence from PA or ZFC using currently known techniques is no easier than proving the existence of efficient algorithms for all problems in NP.

Claimed solutions [edit]

While the P versus NP problem is generally considered unsolved,[27] many amateur and some professional researchers have claimed solutions. Woeginger (2010) has a comprehensive list.[28] An August 2010 claim of proof that P NP, by Vinay Deolalikar, researcher at HP Labs, Palo Alto, received heavy Internet and press attention after being initially described as "seem[ing] to be a relatively serious attempt" by two leading specialists.[29] The proof has been reviewed publicly by academics,[30][31] and Neil Immerman, an expert in the field, had pointed out two possibly fatal errors in the proof. [32] As of 15 September 2010, Deolalikar was reported to be working on a detailed expansion of his attempted proof. [33] However, opinions expressed by several notable theoretical computer scientists indicate that the attempted proof is neither correct nor a significant advancement in the understanding of the problem.[34]

Logical characterizations[edit]
The P = NP problem can be restated in terms of expressible certain classes of logical statements, as a result of work in descriptive complexity. Consider all language of finite structures with a fixed signature including a linear order relation. Then, all such languages in P can be expressed in first-order logic with the addition of a suitable least fixed-point combinator. Effectively, this, in

combination with the order, allows the definition of recursive functions. As long as the signature contains at least one predicate or function in addition to the distinguished order relation, so that the amount of space taken to store such finite structures is actually polynomial in the number of elements in the structure, this precisely characterizes P. Similarly, NP is the set of languages expressible in existential second-order logicthat is, second-order logic restricted to exclude universal quantification over relations, functions, and subsets. The languages in the polynomial hierarchy, PH, correspond to all of second-order logic. Thus, the question "is P a proper subset of NP" can be reformulated as "is existential second-order logic able to describe languages (of finite linearly ordered structures with nontrivial signature) that first-order logic with least fixed point cannot?".[35] The word "existential" can even be dropped from the previous characterization, since P = NP if and only if P = PH (as the former would establish that NP = co-NP, which in turn implies that NP = PH).

Polynomial-time algorithms[edit]
No algorithm for any NP-complete problem is known to run in polynomial time. However, there are algorithms for NPcomplete problems with the property that if P = NP, then the algorithm runs in polynomial time (although with enormous constants, making the algorithm impractical). The following algorithm, due to Levin (without any citation), is such an example below. It correctly accepts the NP-complete language SUBSET-SUM. It runs in polynomial time if and only if P = NP:

// Algorithm that accepts the NP-complete language SUBSET-SUM. // // this is a polynomial-time algorithm if and only if P = NP. // // "Polynomial-time" means it returns "yes" in polynomial time when // the answer should be "yes", and runs forever when it is "no". // // Input: S = a finite set of integers // Output: "yes" if any subset of S adds up to 0. // Runs forever with no output otherwise. // Note: "Program number P" is the program obtained by // writing the integer P in binary, then // considering that string of bits to be a // program. Every possible program can be // generated this way, though most do nothing // because of syntax errors. FOR N = 1... FOR P = 1...N Run program number P for N steps with input S IF the program outputs a list of distinct integers AND the integers are all in S AND the integers sum to 0 THEN OUTPUT "yes" and HALT

If, and only if, P = NP, then this is a polynomial-time algorithm accepting an NP-complete language. "Accepting" means it gives "yes" answers in polynomial time, but is allowed to run forever when the answer is "no" (also known as a semialgorithm).

This algorithm is enormously impractical, even if P = NP. If the shortest program that can solve SUBSET-SUM in polynomial time is b bits long, the above algorithm will try at least 2b1 other programs first.

Formal definitions for P and NP[edit]

Conceptually a decision problem is a problem that takes as input some string w over an alphabet , and outputs "yes" or "no". If there is an algorithm (say a Turing machine, or a computer program with unbounded memory) that can produce the correct answer for any input string of length n in at most cnk steps, where k and c are constants independent of the input string, then we say that the problem can be solved in polynomial time and we place it in the class P. Formally, P is defined as the set of all languages that can be decided by a deterministic polynomial-time Turing machine. That is,

where

and a deterministic polynomial-time Turing machine is a deterministic Turing machine M that satisfies the following two conditions: 1. 2. M halts on all input w and there exists such that , where O refers to the big O notation and

NP can be defined similarly using nondeterministic Turing machines (the traditional way). However, a modern approach to define NP is to use the concept of certificate and verifier. Formally, NP is defined as the set of languages over a finite alphabet that have a verifier that runs in polynomial time, where the notion of "verifier" is defined as follows. Let L be a language over a finite alphabet, . L NP if, and only if, there exists a binary relation conditions are satisfied: such that (x, y) R and over and a positive integer k such that the following two

1. 2.

For all the language

; and is decidable by a Turing machine in

polynomial time. A Turing machine that decides LR is called a verifier for L and a y such that (x, y) R is called a certificate of membership of x in L. In general, a verifier does not have to be polynomial-time. However, for L to be in NP, there must be a verifier that runs in polynomial time.

Example[edit]
Let

Clearly, the question of whether a given x is a composite is equivalent to the question of whether x is a member of COMPOSITE. It can be shown that COMPOSITE NP by verifying that it satisfies the above definition (if we identify natural numbers with their binary representations). COMPOSITE also happens to be in P.[36][37]

Formal definition for NP-completeness[edit]

There are many equivalent ways of describing NP-completeness. Let L be a language over a finite alphabet . L is NP-complete if, and only if, the following two conditions are satisfied: 1. 2. L NP; and any L in NP is polynomial-time-reducible to L (written as ), where if, and only if, the

following two conditions are satisfied: 1. 2. There exists f : * * such that for all w in * we have: ; and

there exists a polynomial-time Turing machine that halts with f(w) on its tape on any input w.

NP (complexity)
Is P = NP ?

Euler diagram for P, NP, NP-complete, and NP-hard set of problems. The existence of problems within NP but outside both P and NPcomplete, under the P!=NP assumption, wasestablished by Ladner.[1]

In computational complexity theory, NP is one of the most fundamental complexity classes. The abbreviation NP refers to "nondeterministic polynomial time." Intuitively, NP is the set of all decision problems for which the instances where the answer is "yes" have efficiently verifiable proofs of the fact that the answer is indeed "yes". More precisely, these proofs have to be verifiable in polynomial time by a deterministic Turing machine. In an equivalent formal definition, NP is the set of decision problems where the "yes"instances can be accepted in polynomial time by a non-deterministic Turing machine. The equivalence of the two definitions follows from the fact that an algorithm on such a non-deterministic machine consists of two phases, the first of which consists

of a guess about the solution, which is generated in a non-deterministic way, while the second consists of a deterministic algorithm that verifies or rejects the guess as a valid solution to the problem.[2] The complexity class P is contained in NP, but NP contains many important problems, the hardest of which are called NPcompleteproblems, whose solutions are sufficient to deal with any other NP problem in polynomial time. The most important open question in complexity theory, the P = NP problem, asks whether polynomial time algorithms actually exist for NPcomplete, and by corollary, all NPproblems. It is widely believed that this is not the case.[3]

Formal definition[edit]
The complexity class NP can be defined in terms of NTIME as follows:

Alternatively, NP can be defined using deterministic Turing machines as verifiers. A language L is in NP if and only if there exist polynomials p and q, and a deterministic Turing machine M, such that

For all x and y, the machine M runs in time p(|x|) on input (x,y) For all x in L, there exists a string y of length q(|x|) such that M(x,y) = 1 For all x not in L and all strings y of length q(|x|), M(x,y) = 0

Introduction[edit]
Many natural computer science problems are covered by the class NP. In particular, the decision versions of many interesting search problems and optimization problems are contained in NP.

Verifier-based definition[edit]
In order to explain the verifier-based definition of NP, let us consider the subset sum problem: Assume that we are given some integers, such as {7, 3, 2, 5, 8}, and we wish to know whether some of these integers sum up to zero. In this example, the answer is "yes", since the subset of integers {3, 2, 5} corresponds to the sum (3) + (2) + 5 = 0. The task of deciding whether such a subset with sum zero exists is called the subset sum problem. As the number of integers that we feed into the algorithm becomes larger, the number of subsets grows exponentially, and in fact the subset sum problem is NP-complete. However, notice that, if we are given a particular subset (often called a certificate), we can easily check or verify whether the subset sum is zero, by just summing up the integers of the subset. So if the sum is indeed zero, that particular subset is the proof or witness for the fact that the answer is "yes". An algorithm that verifies whether a given subset has sum zero is called verifier. A problem is said to be inNP if there exists a verifier for the problem that executes in polynomial time. In case of the subset sum problem, the verifier needs only polynomial time, for which reason the subset sum problem is in NP. The "no"-answer version of this problem is stated as: "given a finite set of integers, does every non-empty subset have a nonzero sum?". Note that the verifier-based definition of NP does notrequire an easy-to-verify certificate for the "no"answers. The class of problems with such certificates for the "no"-answers is called co-NP. In fact, it is an open question whether all problems inNP also have certificates for the "no"-answers and thus are in co-NP.

Machine-definition[edit]

Equivalent to the verifier-based definition is the following characterization: NP is the set of decision problems solvable by a non-deterministic Turing machine that runs in polynomial time. (This means that there is an accepting computation path if a word is in the language co-NP is defined dually with rejecting paths.) This definition is equivalent to the verifier-based definition because a non-deterministic Turing machine could solve an NP problem in polynomial time by non-deterministically selecting a certificate and running the verifier on the certificate. Similarly, if such a machine exists, then a polynomial time verifier can naturally be constructed from it.

Examples[edit]
This is an incomplete list of problems that are in NP.

All problems in P (For, given a certificate for a problem in P, we can ignore the certificate and just solve the problem

in polynomial time. Alternatively, note that a deterministic Turing machine is also trivially a non-deterministic Turing machine that just happens to not use any non-determinism.)

The decision problem version of the integer factorization problem: given integers n and k, is there a factor f with 1

< f < k and f dividing n?

The graph isomorphism problem of determining whether two graphs can be drawn identically All NP-complete problems, e.g.: A variant of the traveling salesman problem, where we want to know if there is a route of some length that

goes through all the nodes in a certain network

The boolean satisfiability problem, where we want to know whether or not a certain formula in propositional

logic with boolean variables is true for some value of the variables

Why some NP problems are hard to solve[edit]

Because of the many important problems in this class, there have been extensive efforts to find polynomial-time algorithms for problems in NP. However, there remain a large number of problems in NP that defy such attempts, seeming to require super-polynomial time. Whether these problems really aren't decidable in polynomial time is one of the greatest open questions in computer science (see P=NP problem for an in-depth discussion). An important notion in this context is the set of NP-complete decision problems, which is a subset of NP and might be informally described as the "hardest" problems in NP. If there is a polynomial-time algorithm for even one of them, then there is a polynomial-time algorithm for all the problems in NP. Because of this, and because dedicated research has failed to find a polynomial algorithm for any NP-complete problem, once a problem has been proven to be NP-complete this is widely regarded as a sign that a polynomial algorithm for this problem is unlikely to exist. However, in practical uses, instead of spending computational resources looking for an optimal solution, a good enough (but potentially suboptimal) solution may often be found in polynomial time. Also, the real life applications of some problems are easier than their theoretical equivalents. For example, inputs to the general Travelling salesman problem need not obey the triangle inequality, unlike real road networks.

Equivalence of definitions[edit]
The two definitions of NP as the class of problems solvable by a nondeterministic Turing machine (TM) in polynomial time and the class of problems verifiable by a deterministic Turing machine in polynomial time are equivalent. The proof is described by many textbooks, for example Sipser's Introduction to the Theory of Computation, section 7.3.

To show this, first suppose we have a deterministic verifier. A nondeterministic machine can simply nondeterministically run the verifier on all possible proof strings (this requires only polynomially many steps because it can nondeterministically choose the next character in the proof string in each step, and the length of the proof string must be polynomially bounded). If any proof is valid, some path will accept; if no proof is valid, the string is not in the language and it will reject. Conversely, suppose we have a nondeterministic TM called A accepting a given language L. At each of its polynomially many steps, the machine's computation tree branches in at most a constant number of directions. There must be at least one accepting path, and the string describing this path is the proof supplied to the verifier. The verifier can then deterministically simulate A, following only the accepting path, and verifying that it accepts at the end. If A rejects the input, there is no accepting path, and the verifier will never accept.

Relationship to other classes[edit]

NP contains all problems in P, since one can verify any instance of the problem by simply ignoring the proof and solving it. NP is contained in PSPACEto show this, it suffices to construct aPSPACE machine that loops over all proof strings and feeds each one to a polynomial-time verifier. Since a polynomial-time machine can only read polynomially many bits, it cannot use more than polynomial space, nor can it read a proof string occupying more than polynomial space (so we don't have to consider proofs longer than this). NP is also contained in EXPTIME, since the same algorithm operates in exponential time. The complement of NP, co-NP, contains those problems which have a simple proof for no instances, sometimes called counterexamples. For example, primality testing trivially lies in co-NP, since one can refute the primality of an integer by merely supplying a nontrivial factor. NP and co-NP together form the first level in the polynomial hierarchy, higher only than P. NP is defined using only deterministic machines. If we permit the verifier to be probabilistic (this however, is not necessarily a BPP machine [4] ), we get the class MA solvable using an Arthur-Merlin protocol with no communication from Merlin to Arthur. NP is a class of decision problems; the analogous class of function problems is FNP.

Other characterizations[edit]
In terms of descriptive complexity theory, NP corresponds precisely to the set of languages definable by existential secondorder logic (Fagin's theorem). NP can be seen as a very simple type of interactive proof system, where the prover comes up with the proof certificate and the verifier is a deterministic polynomial-time machine that checks it. It is complete because the right proof string will make it accept if there is one, and it is sound because the verifier cannot accept if there is no acceptable proof string. A major result of complexity theory is that NP can be characterized as the problems solvable by probabilistically checkable proofs where the verifier uses O(log n) random bits and examines only a constant number of bits of the proof string (the class PCP(log n, 1)). More informally, this means that the NP verifier described above can be replaced with one that just "spot-checks" a few places in the proof string, and using a limited number of coin flips can determine the correct answer with high probability. This allows several results about the hardness of approximation algorithms to be proven.

Example[edit]

The decision version of the traveling salesman problem is in NP. Given an input matrix of distances between n cities, the problem is to determine if there is a route visiting all cities with total distance less than k. A proof certificate can simply be a list of the cities. Then verification can clearly be done in polynomial time by a deterministic Turing machine. It simply adds the matrix entries corresponding to the paths between the cities. A nondeterministic Turing machine can find such a route as follows:

At each city it visits it "guesses" the next city to visit, until it has visited every vertex. If it gets stuck, it stops

immediately.

At the end it verifies that the route it has taken has cost less than k in O(n) time.

One can think of each guess as "forking" a new copy of the Turing machine to follow each of the possible paths forward, and if at least one machine finds a route of distance less than k, that machine accepts the input. (Equivalently, this can be thought of as a single Turing machine that always guesses correctly) Binary search on the range of possible distances can convert the decision version of Traveling Salesman to the optimization version, by calling the decision version repeatedly (a polynomial number of times).

P (complexity)
In computational complexity theory, P, also known as PTIME or DTIME(nO(1)), is one of the most fundamental complexity classes. It contains all decision problems that can be solved by adeterministic Turing machine using a polynomial amount of computation time, or polynomial time. Cobham's thesis holds that P is the class of computational problems that are "efficiently solvable" or "tractable"; in practice, some problems not known to be in P have practical solutions, and some that are in P do not, but this is a useful rule of thumb.

Definition[edit]
A language L is in P if and only if there exists a deterministic Turing machine M, such that

M runs for polynomial time on all inputs For all x in L, M outputs 1 For all x not in L, M outputs 0

P can also be viewed as a uniform family of boolean circuits. A language L is in P if and only if there exists a polynomial-time uniform family of boolean circuits , such that

For all For all x in L,

takes n bits as input and outputs 1 bit

For all x not in L,

The circuit definition can be weakened to use only a logspace uniform family without changing the complexity class.

Notable problems in P[edit]

P is known to contain many natural problems, including the decision versions of linear programming, calculating the greatest common divisor, and finding a maximum matching. In 2002, it was shown that the problem of determining if a number is prime is in P.[1] The related class of function problems is FP. Several natural problems are complete for P, including st-connectivity (or reachability) on alternating graphs.[2] The article on P-complete problems lists further relevant problems in P.

Relationships to other classes[edit]

A generalization of P is NP, which is the class of decision problems decidable by a non-deterministic Turing machine that runs in polynomial time. Equivalently, it is the class of decision problems where each "yes" instance has a polynomial size certificate, and certificates can be checked by a polynomial time deterministic Turing machine. The class of problems for which this is true for the "no" instances is called co-NP. P is trivially a subset of NP and of co-NP; most experts believe it is a strict subset,[3] although this (the P NP hypothesis) remains unproven. Another open problem is whether NP = co-NP (a negative answer would imply P NP). P is also known to be at least as large as L, the class of problems decidable in a logarithmic amount of memory space. A decider using space cannot use more than time, because this is the total number of

possible configurations; thus, L is a subset of P. Another important problem is whether L = P. We do know that P = AL, the set of problems solvable in logarithmic memory by alternating Turing machines. P is also known to be no larger than PSPACE, the class of problems decidable in polynomial space. Again, whether P =PSPACE is an open problem. To summarize:

Here, EXPTIME is the class of problems solvable in exponential time. Of all the classes shown above, only two strict containments are known:

P is strictly contained in EXPTIME. Consequently, all EXPTIME-hard problems lie outside P, and at least one of the

containments to the right of P above is strict (in fact, it is widely believed that all three are strict).

L is strictly contained in PSPACE.

The most difficult problems in P are P-complete problems. Another generalization of P is P/poly, or Nonuniform Polynomial-Time. If a problem is in P/poly, then it can be solved in deterministic polynomial time provided that an advice string is given that depends only on the length of the input. Unlike for NP, however, the polynomial-time machine doesn't need to detect fraudulent advice strings; it is not a verifier. P/poly is a large class containing nearly all practical problems, including all of BPP. If it contains NP, then the polynomial hierarchy collapses to the second level. On the other hand, it also contains some impractical problems, including some undecidable problems such as the unary version of any undecidable problem. In 1999, Jin-Yi Cai and D. Sivakumar, building on work by Mitsunori Ogihara, showed that if there exists a sparse language that is P-complete, then L = P.[4]

Properties[edit]
Polynomial-time algorithms are closed under composition. Intuitively, this says that if one writes a function that is polynomialtime assuming that function calls are constant-time, and if those called functions themselves require polynomial time, then

the entire algorithm takes polynomial time. One consequence of this is that P is low for itself. This is also one of the main reasons that Pis considered to be a machine-independent class; any machine "feature", such as random access, that can be simulated in polynomial time can simply be composed with the main polynomial-time algorithm to reduce it to a polynomialtime algorithm on a more basic machine.