Complexity of counting points on curves and the factor $P_1(T)$ of the zeta function of surfaces

TL;DR

This paper develops efficient protocols and algorithms for counting points on algebraic curves and surfaces over finite fields, providing new complexity bounds and certification methods for their zeta functions.

Contribution

It introduces the first efficient Arthur-Merlin protocol for certifying point counts and zeta functions of curves and surfaces, and presents algorithms with polylogarithmic and quantum complexity bounds.

Findings

First efficient protocol for certifying point counts on curves.

Poly($ ext{log } q$)-time algorithm for computing $P_1(T)$ on surfaces.

New upper bounds on the computational complexity of counting points.

Abstract

This article concerns the computational complexity of a fundamental problem in number theory: counting points on curves and surfaces over finite fields. There is no subexponential-time algorithm known and it is unclear if it can be $\mathrm{NP}$-hard. Given a curve, we present the first efficient Arthur-Merlin protocol to certify its point-count, its Jacobian group structure, and its Hasse-Weil zeta function. We extend this result to a smooth projective surface to certify the factor $P_{1}(T)$, corresponding to the first Betti number, of the zeta function; by using the counting oracle. We give the first algorithm to compute $P_{1}(T)$ that is poly($\log q$)-time if the degree $D$ of the input surface is fixed; and in quantum poly($D\log q$)-time in general. Our technique in the curve case, is to sample hash functions using the Weil and Riemann-Roch bounds, to certify the group order of its Jacobian. For higher dimension varieties, we first reduce to the case of a surface, which is fibred as a Lefschetz pencil of hyperplane sections over $\mathbb{P}^{1}$. The formalism of vanishing cycles, and the inherent big monodromy, enable us to prove an effective version of Deligne's `theoreme du pgcd' using the hard-Lefschetz theorem and an equidistribution result due to Katz. These reduce our investigations to that of computing the zeta function of a curve, defined over a finite field extension $\mathbb{F}_{Q}/\mathbb{F}_{q}$ of poly-bounded degree. This explicitization of the theory yields the first nontrivial upper bounds on the computational complexity.