The Reachability Problem for Affine Functions on the Integers

Abstract

We consider the problem of determining, given x, y in Z^k and a finite set F of affine functions on Z^k, whether y is reachable from x by applying the functions F. We also consider the analogous problem over N^k. These problems are known to be undecidable for k >= 2. We give 2-EXPTIME algorithms for both problems in the remaining case k = 1. The exact complexities remain open, although we show a simple NP lower bound.