The matrix semigroup membership problem asks, given square matrices M,M₁,…,M_k of the same dimension, whether M lies in the semigroup generated by M₁,…,M_k. It is classical that this problem is undecidable in general, but decidable in case M₁,…,M_k commute. In this paper we consider the problem of whether, given M₁,…,M_k, the semigroup generated by M₁,…,M_k contains a non-negative matrix. We show that in case M₁,…,M_k commute, this problem is decidable subject to Schanuel’s Conjecture. We show also that the problem is undecidable if the commutativity assumption is dropped. A key lemma in our decidability proof is a procedure to determine, given a matrix M, whether the sequence of matrices (Mⁿ)_{n = 0}^∞ is ultimately nonnegative. This answers a problem posed by S. Akshay [S. Akshay et al., 2022]. The latter result is in stark contrast to the notorious fact that it is not known how to determine, for any specific matrix index (i,j), whether the sequence (Mⁿ)_{i,j} is ultimately nonnegative. Indeed the latter is equivalent to the Ultimate Positivity Problem for linear recurrence sequences, a longstanding open problem.
@InProceedings{dcosta_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2024.27, author = {D'Costa, Julian and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Worrell, James}, title = {{Nonnegativity Problems for Matrix Semigroups}}, booktitle = {41st International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2024)}, pages = {27:1--27:16}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-311-9}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2024}, volume = {289}, editor = {Beyersdorff, Olaf and Kant\'{e}, Mamadou Moustapha and Kupferman, Orna and Lokshtanov, Daniel}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2024.27}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-197371}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2024.27}, annote = {Keywords: Decidability, Linear Recurrence Sequences, Schanuel’s Conjecture} }
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