A Tractability Gap Beyond Nim-Sums: It's Hard to Tell Whether a Bunch of Superstars Are Losers

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Burke, Kyle, Ferland, Matthew, Huntemann, Svenja, Teng, Shang-Hua
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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_version_ 1866911791521464320
author Burke, Kyle
Ferland, Matthew
Huntemann, Svenja
Teng, Shang-Hua
author_facet Burke, Kyle
Ferland, Matthew
Huntemann, Svenja
Teng, Shang-Hua
contents In this paper, we address a natural question at the intersection of combinatorial game theory and computational complexity: "Can a sum of simple tepid games in canonical form be intractable?" To resolve this fundamental question, we consider superstars, positions first introduced in Winning Ways where all options are nimbers. Extending Morris' classic result with hot games to tepid games, we prove that disjunctive sums of superstars are intractable to solve. This is striking as sums of nimbers can be computed in linear time. Our analyses also lead to a family of elegant board games with intriguing complexity, for which we present web-playable versions of the rulesets described within.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_04955
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Tractability Gap Beyond Nim-Sums: It's Hard to Tell Whether a Bunch of Superstars Are Losers
Burke, Kyle
Ferland, Matthew
Huntemann, Svenja
Teng, Shang-Hua
Computational Complexity
Combinatorics
91A46
F.1.3; G.2; F.2.2
In this paper, we address a natural question at the intersection of combinatorial game theory and computational complexity: "Can a sum of simple tepid games in canonical form be intractable?" To resolve this fundamental question, we consider superstars, positions first introduced in Winning Ways where all options are nimbers. Extending Morris' classic result with hot games to tepid games, we prove that disjunctive sums of superstars are intractable to solve. This is striking as sums of nimbers can be computed in linear time. Our analyses also lead to a family of elegant board games with intriguing complexity, for which we present web-playable versions of the rulesets described within.
title A Tractability Gap Beyond Nim-Sums: It's Hard to Tell Whether a Bunch of Superstars Are Losers
topic Computational Complexity
Combinatorics
91A46
F.1.3; G.2; F.2.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.04955