English

The logical strength of B\"uchi's decidability theorem

Logic in Computer Science 2023-06-22 v4 Logic

Abstract

We study the strength of axioms needed to prove various results related to automata on infinite words and B\"uchi's theorem on the decidability of the MSO theory of (N,)(N, {\le}). We prove that the following are equivalent over the weak second-order arithmetic theory RCA0RCA_0: (1) the induction scheme for Σ20\Sigma^0_2 formulae of arithmetic, (2) a variant of Ramsey's Theorem for pairs restricted to so-called additive colourings, (3) B\"uchi's complementation theorem for nondeterministic automata on infinite words, (4) the decidability of the depth-nn fragment of the MSO theory of (N,)(N, {\le}), for each n5n \ge 5. Moreover, each of (1)-(4) implies McNaughton's determinisation theorem for automata on infinite words, as well as the "bounded-width" version of K\"onig's Lemma, often used in proofs of McNaughton's theorem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1608.07514,
  title  = {The logical strength of B\"uchi's decidability theorem},
  author = {Leszek Kołodziejczyk and Henryk Michalewski and Cécilia Pradic and Michał Skrzypczak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.07514},
  year   = {2023}
}