English

The Dynamic Descriptive Complexity of k-Clique

Logic in Computer Science 2016-10-31 v1

Abstract

In this work the dynamic descriptive complexity of the k-clique query is studied. It is shown that when edges may only be inserted then k-clique can be maintained by a quantifier-free update program of arity k-1, but it cannot be maintained by a quantifier-free update program of arity k-2 (even in the presence of unary auxiliary functions). This establishes an arity hierarchy for graph queries for quantifier-free update programs under insertions. The proof of the lower bound uses upper and lower bounds for Ramsey numbers.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1610.09089,
  title  = {The Dynamic Descriptive Complexity of k-Clique},
  author = {Thomas Zeume},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.09089},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

An extended abstract of this work appeared in the proceedings of the conference Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2014 (MFCS 2014)

R2 v1 2026-06-22T16:34:54.891Z