On the Complexity of the Skolem Problem at Low Orders

Abstract: The Skolem Problem asks to determine whether a given linear recurrence sequence (LRS) $\langle u_n \rangle_{n=0}^\infty$ over the integers has a zero term, that is, whether there exists $n$ such that $u_n = 0$. Decidability of the problem is open in general, with the most notable positive result being a decision procedure for LRS of order at most 4. In this paper we consider a bounded version of the Skolem Problem, in which the input consists of an LRS $\langle u_n \rangle_{n=0}^\infty$ and a bound $N \in \mathbb N$ (with all integers written in binary), and the task is to determine whether there exists $n\in{0,\ldots,N}$ such that $u_n=0$. We give a randomised algorithm for this problem that, for all $d\in \mathbb N$, runs in polynomial time on the class of LRS of order at most $d$. As a corollary we show that the (unrestricted) Skolem Problem for LRS of order at most 4 lies in $\mathsf{coRP}$, improving the best previous upper bound of $\mathsf{NP}^{\mathsf{RP}}$. The running time of our algorithm is exponential in the order of the LRS -- a dependence that appears necessary in view of the $\mathsf{NP}$-hardness of the Bounded Skolem Problem. However, even for LRS of a fixed order, the problem involves detecting zeros within an exponentially large range. For this, our algorithm relies on results from $p$-adic analysis to isolate polynomially many candidate zeros and then test in randomised polynomial time whether each candidate is an actual zero by reduction to arithmetic-circuit identity testing.