Corpus ID: 210932690

# Computing commutator length is hard

@article{Heuer2020ComputingCL,
title={Computing commutator length is hard},
author={Nicolaus Heuer},
journal={arXiv: Group Theory},
year={2020}
}
The commutator length $cl_G(g)$ of an element $g \in [G,G]$ in the commutator subgroup of a group $G$ is the least number of commutators needed to express $g$ as their product. If $G$ is a non-abelian free groups, then given an integer $n \in \mathbb{N}$ and an element $g \in [G,G]$ the decision problem which determines if $cl_G(g) \leq n$ is NP-complete. Thus, unless P=NP, there is no algorithm that computes $cl_G(g)$ in polynomial time in terms of $|g|$, the wordlength of $g$. This statement… Expand
1 Citations
Stable commutator length in right-angled Artin and Coxeter groups.
• Mathematics
• 2020
We establish a spectral gap for stable commutator length (scl) of integral chains in right-angled Artin groups (RAAGs). We show that this gap is not uniform, i.e. there are RAAGs and integral chainsExpand

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