A theory of complexity for continuous time systems

  • Authors:
  • Asa Ben-Hur;Hava T. Siegelmann;Shmuel Fishman

  • Affiliations:
  • Biowulf Technologies, 2030 Addison, Suite 102, Berkeley, CA 94704 and Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel;Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts;Department of Physics, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Complexity
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

We present a model of computation with ordinary differential equations (ODEs) which converge to attractors that are interpreted as the output of a computation. We introduce a measure of complexity for exponentially convergent ODEs, enabling an algorithmic analysis of continuous time flows and their comparison with discrete algorithms. We define polynomial and logarithmic continuous time complexity classes and show that an ODE which solves the maximum network flow problem has polynomial time complexity. We also analyze a simple flow that solves the Maximum problem in logarithmic time. We conjecture that a subclass of the continuous P is equivalent to the classical P.