English

Relativization of Gurevich's Conjectures

Logic in Computer Science 2020-02-11 v1 Computational Complexity

Abstract

Gurevich (1988) conjectured that there is no logic for P\textsf{P} or for NPcoNP\textsf{NP}\cap \textsf{coNP}. For the latter complexity class, he also showed that the existence of a logic would imply that NPcoNP\textsf{NP} \cap \textsf{coNP} has a complete problem under polynomial time reductions. We show that there is an oracle with respect to which P\textsf P does have a logic and PNP\textsf P \ne\textsf{NP}. We also show that a logic for NPcoNP\textsf{NP} \cap \textsf{coNP} follows from the existence of a complete problem and a further assumption about canonical labelling. For intersection classes ΣnpΠnp\Sigma^p_n \cap \Pi^p_n higher in the polynomial hierarchy, the existence of a logic is equivalent to the existence of complete problems.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2002.03725,
  title  = {Relativization of Gurevich's Conjectures},
  author = {Anatole Dahan and Anuj Dawar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.03725},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

accepted for publication in a volume of papers dedicated to Yuri Gurevich's 80th birthday

R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:36:38.173Z