Hardness results for the subpower membership problem

Abstract

The main result of this paper shows that if [Formula: see text] is a consistent strong linear Maltsev condition which does not imply the existence of a cube term, then for any finite algebra [Formula: see text] there exists a new finite algebra [Formula: see text] which satisfies the Maltsev condition [Formula: see text], and whose subpower membership problem is at least as hard as the subpower membership problem for [Formula: see text]. We characterize consistent strong linear Maltsev conditions which do not imply the existence of a cube term, and show that there are finite algebras in varieties that are congruence distributive and congruence [Formula: see text]-permutable ([Formula: see text]) whose subpower membership problem is EXPTIME-complete.