Solving sparse linear equations over finite fields

  • Authors:
  • D H Wiedemann

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
  • Year:
  • 1986

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Abstract

A "coordinate recurrence" method for solving sparse systems of linear equations over finite fields is described. The algorithms discussed all requireO(n_{1}(omega + n_{1})log^{k}n_{1})field operations, wheren_{1}is the maximum dimension of the coefficient matrix,omegais approximately the number of field operations required to apply the matrix to a test vector, and the value ofkdepends on the algorithm. A probabilistic algorithm is shown to exist for finding the determinant of a square matrix. Also, probabilistic algorithms are shown to exist for finding the minimum polynomial and rank with some arbitrarily small possibility of error.