The infimum, supremum, and geodesic length of a braid conjugacy class. (English) Zbl 1063.20039

Birman, Joan S.; Ko, Ki Hyoung; Lee, Sang Jin

Adv. Math. 164, No. 1, 41-56 (2001).

Summary: Algorithmic solutions to the conjugacy problem in the braid groups \(B_n\), \(n=2,3,4,\dots\) were given in earlier work. This note concerns the computation of two integer class invariants, known as “inf” and “sup”. A key issue in both algorithms is the number \(m\) of times one must “cycle” (resp. “decycle”) in order to either increase inf (resp. decrease sup) or to be sure that it is already maximal (resp. minimal) for the class. Our main result is to prove that \(m\) is bounded above by \(((n^2-n)/2)-1\) in the situation stated by E. A. Elrifai and H. R. Morton [Q. J. Math., Oxf. II. Ser. 45, No. 180, 479-497 (1994; Zbl 0839.20051)] and by \(n-2\) in the situation stated by authors [Adv. Math. 139, No. 2, 322-353 (1998; Zbl 0937.20016)]. It follows immediately that the computation of inf and sup is polynomial in both word length and braid index, in both algorithms. The integers inf and sup determine (but are not determined by) the shortest geodesic length for elements in a conjugacy class, and so we also obtain a polynomial-time algorithm for computing this length.

MSC:

20F36	Braid groups; Artin groups
20F10	Word problems, other decision problems, connections with logic and automata (group-theoretic aspects)
20E45	Conjugacy classes for groups
68W30	Symbolic computation and algebraic computation
57M07	Topological methods in group theory

Keywords:

conjugacy problem; braid groups; word lengths; braid indices; geodesic lengths; conjugacy classes; polynomial-time algorithms

Citations:

Zbl 0839.20051; Zbl 0937.20016

References:

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