NTIME

NTIME

In computational complexity theory, the complexity class NTIME(f(n)) is the set of decision problems that can be solved by a non-deterministic Turing machine using time O(f(n)), and unlimited space.

The well-known complexity class NP can be defined in terms of NTIME as follows:

\mbox{NP} = \bigcup_{k\in\mathbb{N}} \mbox{NTIME}(n^k)

Similarly, the class NEXP is defined in terms of NTIME:

\mbox{NEXP} = \bigcup_{k\in\mathbb{N}} \mbox{NTIME}(2^{n^k})

The non-deterministic time hierarchy theorem says that nondeterministic machines can solve more problems in asymptotically more time.

NTIME is also related to DSPACE in the following way. For any time constructible function t(n), we have

\mbox{NTIME}(t(n)) \subseteq \mbox{DSPACE}(t(n)).

A generalization of NTIME is ATIME, defined with alternating Turing machines. It turns out that

\mbox{NTIME}(t(n)) \subseteq \mbox{ATIME}(t(n)) \subseteq \mbox{DSPACE}(t(n)).

References

Complexity Zoo: NTIME(f(n)).