English

Automatic constraint satisfaction problem

Logic in Computer Science 2026-04-22 v1 Formal Languages and Automata Theory

Abstract

We study constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) where the constraint languages are defined by finite automata, giving rise to automata-based CSPs. The key notion is the concept of Automatic Constraint Satisfaction Problem (AutCSPAutCSP), where constraint languages and instances are specified by finite automata. The AutCSPAutCSP captures infinite yet finitely describable sets of relations, enabling concise representations of complex constraints. Studying the complexity of the AutCSPAutCSPs illustrates the interplay between classical CSPs, automata, and logic, sharpening the boundary between tractable and intractable constraints. We show that checking whether an operation is a polymorphism of such a language can be done in polynomial time. Building on this, we establish several complexity classification results for the AutCSPAutCSP. In particular, we prove that Schaefer's Dichotomy Theorem extends to the AutCSPAutCSP over the Boolean domain, and we provide algorithms that decide tractability of some classes of AutCSPAutCSPs over arbitrary finite domains via automatic polymorphisms. An important part of our work is that our polynomial-time algorithms run on AutCSPAutCSP instances that can be exponentially more succinct than their standard CSP counterparts.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.19266,
  title  = {Automatic constraint satisfaction problem},
  author = {Andrei Bulatov and Xiaoyang Gong and Bakh Khoussainov and Xinyao Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.19266},
  year   = {2026}
}