Verifying Groups in Linear Time

Consider the following problem: Given an <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$n$</tex> × <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$n$</tex> multiplication table, decide whether it is a Cayley multiplication table of a group. Among deterministic algorithms for this problem, the best known algorithm is implied by F. W. Light's associativity test (1949) and has running time of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">${O}(n^{2}\log n)$</tex>. Allowing randomization. the best known algorithm has running time of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$O(n^{2}\log(1/\delta))$</tex>, where <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\delta &gt; 0$</tex> is the error probability of the algorithm (Rajagopalan and Schulman, FOCS 1996, SICOMP 2000). In this work, we improve upon both of the above known algorithms. Specifically, we present a deterministic algorithm for the above problem whose running time is <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$O(n^{2})$</tex>. This performance is optimal up to constants. A central tool we develop is an efficient algorithm for finding a subset <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$A$</tex> of a group <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$G$</tex> satisfying <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$A^{2}=G$</tex> while <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\vert A\vert=O(\sqrt{\vert G\vert })$</tex>.