Faster Integer Multiplication

  • Authors:
  • Martin Fürer

  • Affiliations:
  • furer@cse.psu.edu

  • Venue:
  • SIAM Journal on Computing
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

For more than 35 years, the fastest known method for integer multiplication has been the Schönhage-Strassen algorithm running in time $O(n\log n\log\log n)$. Under certain restrictive conditions, there is a corresponding $\Omega(n\log n)$ lower bound. All this time, the prevailing conjecture has been that the complexity of an optimal integer multiplication algorithm is $\Theta(n\log n)$. We take a major step towards closing the gap between the upper bound and the conjectured lower bound by presenting an algorithm running in time $n\log n\,2^{O(\log^*n)}$. The running time bound holds for multitape Turing machines. The same bound is valid for the size of Boolean circuits.