On Identity Testing and Noncommutative Rank Computation over the Free Skew Field

Abstract

The identity testing of rational formulas (RIT) in the free skew field efficiently reduces to computing the rank of a matrix whose entries are linear polynomials in noncommuting variables [Hrubeš and Wigderson, 2015]. This rank computation problem has deterministic polynomial-time white-box algorithms [Ankit Garg et al., 2016; Ivanyos et al., 2018] and a randomized polynomial-time algorithm in the black-box setting [Harm Derksen and Visu Makam, 2017]. In this paper, we propose a new approach for efficient derandomization of black-box RIT. Additionally, we obtain results for matrix rank computation over the free skew field and construct efficient linear pencil representations for a new class of rational expressions. More precisely, we show:  
- Under the hardness assumption that the ABP (algebraic branching program) complexity of every polynomial identity for the k×k matrix algebra is 2^Ω(k) [Andrej Bogdanov and Hoeteck Wee, 2005], we obtain a subexponential-time black-box RIT algorithm for rational formulas of inversion height almost logarithmic in the size of the formula. This can be seen as the first "hardness implies derandomization" type theorem for rational formulas. 
- We show that the noncommutative rank of any matrix over the free skew field whose entries have small linear pencil representations can be computed in deterministic polynomial time. While an efficient rank computation was known for matrices with noncommutative formulas as entries [Ankit Garg et al., 2020], we obtain the first deterministic polynomial-time algorithms for rank computation of matrices whose entries are noncommutative ABPs or rational formulas.
- Motivated by the definition given by Bergman [George M Bergman, 1976], we define a new class of rational functions where a rational function of inversion height at most h is defined as a composition of a noncommutative r-skewed circuit (equivalently an ABP) with inverses of rational functions of this class of inversion height at most h-1 which are also disjoint. We obtain a polynomial-size linear pencil representation for this class which gives a white-box deterministic polynomial-time identity testing algorithm for the class.