English

Subshifts, MSO Logic, and Collapsing Hierarchies

Dynamical Systems 2014-06-30 v1 Formal Languages and Automata Theory Logic in Computer Science Logic

Abstract

We use monadic second-order logic to define two-dimensional subshifts, or sets of colorings of the infinite plane. We present a natural family of quantifier alternation hierarchies, and show that they all collapse to the third level. In particular, this solves an open problem of [Jeandel & Theyssier 2013]. The results are in stark contrast with picture languages, where such hierarchies are usually infinite.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1406.7155,
  title  = {Subshifts, MSO Logic, and Collapsing Hierarchies},
  author = {Ilkka Törmä},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1406.7155},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

12 pages, 5 figures. To appear in conference proceedings of TCS 2014, published by Springer

R2 v1 2026-06-22T04:49:12.034Z