RP (complexity) - Connection To P and NP

Connection To P and NP

P is a subset of RP, which is a subset of NP. Similarly, P is a subset of co-RP which is a subset of co-NP. It is not known whether these inclusions are strict. However, if the commonly believed conjecture P = BPP is true, then RP, co-RP, and P collapse (are all equal). Assuming in addition that P ≠ NP, this then implies that RP is strictly contained in NP. It is not known whether RP = co-RP, or whether RP is a subset of the intersection of NP and co-NP, though this would be implied by P = BPP.

A natural example of a problem in co-RP currently not known to be in P is Polynomial Identity Testing, the problem of deciding whether a given multivariate arithmetic expression over the integers is the zero-polynomial. For instance, x·x − y·y − (x + y)·(x − y) is the zero-polynomial while x·x + y·y is not.

An alternative characterization of RP that is sometimes easier to use is the set of problems recognizable by nondeterministic Turing machines where the machine accepts if and only if at least some constant fraction of the computation paths, independent of the input size, accept. NP on the other hand, needs only one accepting path, which could constitute an exponentially small fraction of the paths. This characterization makes the fact that RP is a subset of NP obvious.