  In this work, we study the discrete logarithm problem in the context of TFNP
- the complexity class of search problems with a syntactically guaranteed
existence of a solution for all instances. Our main results establish that
suitable variants of the discrete logarithm problem are complete for the
complexity class PPP, respectively PWPP, i.e., the subclasses of TFNP capturing
total search problems with a solution guaranteed by the pigeonhole principle,
respectively the weak pigeonhole principle. Besides answering an open problem
from the recent work of Sotiraki, Zampetakis, and Zirdelis (FOCS'18), our
completeness results for PPP and PWPP have implications for the recent line of
work proving conditional lower bounds for problems in TFNP under cryptographic
assumptions. In particular, they highlight that any attempt at basing
average-case hardness in subclasses of TFNP (other than PWPP and PPP) on the
average-case hardness of the discrete logarithm problem must exploit its
structural properties beyond what is necessary for constructions of
collision-resistant hash functions.
  Additionally, our reductions provide new structural insights into the class
PWPP by establishing two new PWPP-complete problems. First, the problem DOVE, a
relaxation of the PPP-complete problem PIGEON. DOVE is the first PWPP-complete
problem not defined in terms of an explicitly shrinking function. Second, the
problem CLAW, a total search problem capturing the computational complexity of
breaking claw-free permutations. In the context of TFNP, the PWPP-completeness
of CLAW matches the known intrinsic relationship between collision-resistant
hash functions and claw-free permutations established in the cryptographic
literature.
