Instruction sequences and non-uniform complexity theory.

Abstract

We develop theory concerning non-uniform complexity in a setting in which the notion of single-pass instruction sequence considered in program algebra is the central notion. We define counterparts of the complexity classes P/poly and NP/poly and formulate a counterpart of the complexity theoretic conjecture that NP is not included in P/poly. In addition, we define a notion of completeness for the counterpart of NP/poly using a non-uniform reducibility relation and formulate complexity hypotheses which concern restrictions on the instruction sequences used for computation. We think that the theory developed opens up an additional way of investigating issues concerning non-uniform complexity.