English

Undecidability of satisfiability in the algebra of finite binary relations with union, composition, and difference

Logic in Computer Science 2014-06-03 v1 Databases

Abstract

We consider expressions built up from binary relation names using the operators union, composition, and set difference. We show that it is undecidable to test whether a given such expression ee is finitely satisfiable, i.e., whether there exist finite binary relations that can be substituted for the relation names so that ee evaluates to a nonempty result. This result already holds in restriction to expressions that mention just a single relation name, and where the difference operator can be nested at most once.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1406.0349,
  title  = {Undecidability of satisfiability in the algebra of finite binary relations with union, composition, and difference},
  author = {Tony Tan and Jan Van den Bussche and Xiaowang Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1406.0349},
  year   = {2014}
}