We study the complexity of representing polynomials by arithmetic circuits in both the commutative and the non-commutative settings. Our approach goes through a precise understanding of the more restricted setting where multiplication is not associative, meaning that we distinguish $(xy)z$ from $x(yz)$.

Our first and main conceptual result is a ... more >>>

This paper studies lower bounds for arithmetic circuits computing (non-commutative) polynomials. Our conceptual contribution is an exact correspondence between circuits and weighted automata: algebraic branching programs are captured by weighted automata over words, and circuits with unique parse trees by weighted automata over trees.

The key notion for understanding the ... more >>>