Navigating in the Cayley Graphs of{rm SL}_{N}(mathbb{Z}) and{rm SL}_{N}(mathbb{F}_{p})

We give a nondeterministic algorithm that expresses elements of, for N ≥ 3, as words in a finite set of generators, with the length of these words at most a constant times the word metric. We show that the nondeterministic time-complexity of the subtractive version of Euclid’s algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of N ≥ 3 integers a₁, ..., a_N is at most a constant times. This leads to an elementary proof that for N ≥ 3 the word metric in is biLipschitz equivalent to the logarithm of the matrix norm – an instance of a theorem of Mozes, Lubotzky and Raghunathan. And we show constructively that there exists K>0 such that for all N ≥ 3 and primes p, the diameter of the Cayley graph of with respect to the generating set is at most.Mathematics Subject Classification: 20F05