The CREW PRAM Complexity of Modular Inversion

Abstract

One of the long-standing open questions in the theory of parallel computation is the parallel complexity of the integer gcd and related problems, such as modular inversion. We present a lower bound $\Omega (\log n)$ for the parallel time on a concurrent-read exclusive-write parallel random access machine (CREW PRAM) computing the inverse modulo certain n-bit integers, including all such primes. For infinitely many moduli, our lower bound matches asymptotically the known upper bound. We obtain a similar lower bound for computing a specified bit in a large power of an integer. Our main tools are certain estimates for exponential sums in finite fields.