English

Presburger Arithmetic with algebraic scalar multiplications

Logic 2023-06-22 v7 Computational Complexity Logic in Computer Science Combinatorics

Abstract

We consider Presburger arithmetic (PA) extended by scalar multiplication by an algebraic irrational number α\alpha, and call this extension α\alpha-Presburger arithmetic (α\alpha-PA). We show that the complexity of deciding sentences in α\alpha-PA is substantially harder than in PA. Indeed, when α\alpha is quadratic and r4r\geq 4, deciding α\alpha-PA sentences with rr alternating quantifier blocks and at most c rc\ r variables and inequalities requires space at least K22C(S)K 2^{\cdot^{\cdot^{\cdot^{2^{C\ell(S)}}}}} (tower of height r3r-3), where the constants c,K,C>0c, K, C>0 only depend on α\alpha, and (S)\ell(S) is the length of the given α\alpha-PA sentence SS. Furthermore deciding 6411\exists^{6}\forall^{4}\exists^{11} α\alpha-PA sentences with at most kk inequalities is PSPACE-hard, where kk is another constant depending only on~α\alpha. When α\alpha is non-quadratic, already four alternating quantifier blocks suffice for undecidability of α\alpha-PA sentences.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1805.03624,
  title  = {Presburger Arithmetic with algebraic scalar multiplications},
  author = {Philipp Hieronymi and Danny Nguyen and Igor Pak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.03624},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:49:55.218Z