Related papers: On FO2 quantifier alternation over words

We consider first-order logics of sequences ordered by the subsequence ordering, aka sequence embedding. We show that the \Sigma_2 theory is undecidable, answering a question left open by Kuske. Regarding fragments with a bounded number of…

The dot-depth hierarchy of Brzozowski and Cohen classifies the star-free languages of finite words. By a theorem of McNaughton and Papert, these are also the first-order definable languages. The dot-depth rose to prominence following the…

Random groups of density d<\frac{1}{2} are infinite hyperbolic, and of density d>\frac{1}{2} are finite. We prove the existence of a uniform quantifier elimination procedure for formulas of minimal rank (probably the superstable part of the…

We study two extensions of FO2[<], first-order logic interpreted in finite words, in which formulas are restricted to use only two variables. We adjoin to this language two-variable atomic formulas that say, "the letter $a$ appears between…

We study extensions of expressive decidable fragments of first-order logic with circumscription, in particular the two-variable fragment FO$^2$, its extension C$^2$ with counting quantifiers, and the guarded fragment GF. We prove that if…

We show that the first-order logical theory of the binary overlap-free words (and, more generally, the ${\alpha}$-free words for rational ${\alpha}$, $2 < {\alpha} \leq 7/3$), is decidable. As a consequence, many results previously obtained…

We consider the length of the longest word definable in FO and MSO via a formula of size n. For both logics we obtain as an upper bound for this number an exponential tower of height linear in n. We prove this by counting types with respect…

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…

In this paper, we study the sampling problem for first-order logic proposed recently by Wang et al. -- how to efficiently sample a model of a given first-order sentence on a finite domain? We extend their result for the…

The regular languages with a neutral letter expressible in first-order logic with one alternation are characterized. Specifically, it is shown that if an arbitrary $\Sigma_2$ formula defines a regular language with a neutral letter, then…

The uniform one-dimensional fragment of first-order logic was introduced a few years ago as a generalization of the two-variable fragment of first-order logic to contexts involving relations of arity greater than two. Quantifiers in this…

We define sets of coulourings of the infinite discrete plane using monadic second order (MSO) formulas. We determine the complexity of deciding whether such a formula defines a subshift, parametrized on the quantifier alternation complexity…

We investigate an operator on classes of languages. For each class $C$, it outputs a new class $FO^2(I_C)$ associated with a variant of two-variable first-order logic equipped with a signature$I_C$ built from $C$. For $C = \{\emptyset,…

Second-order Boolean logic is a generalization of QBF, whose constant alternation fragments are known to be complete for the levels of the exponential time hierarchy. We consider two types of restriction of this logic: 1) restrictions to…

We show that if we enrich first order logic by allowing quantification over isomorphisms between definable ordered fields the resulting logic, L(Q_{Of}), is fully compact. In this logic, we can give standard compactness proofs of various…

It was recently shown by van den Broeck at al. that the symmetric weighted first-order model counting problem (WFOMC) for sentences of two-variable logic FO2 is in polynomial time, while it is Sharp-P_1 complete for some FO3-sentences. We…

We introduce a first-order theory of finite full binary trees and then identify decidable and undecidable fragments of this theory. We show that the analogue of Hilbert`s 10th Problem is undecidable by constructing a many-to-one reduction…

In his dissertation, Wadge defined a notion of guessability on subsets of the Baire space and gave two characterizations of guessable sets. A set is guessable iff it is in the second ambiguous class (boldface Delta^0_2), iff it is…

Quantified modal logic provides a natural logical language for reasoning about modal attitudes even while retaining the richness of quantification for referring to predicates over domains. But then most fragments of the logic are…

Given a right-infinite word $\bf x$ over a finite alphabet $A$, the rank of $\bf x$ is the size of the smallest set $S$ of words over $A$ such that $\bf x$ can be realized as an infinite concatenation of words in $S$. We show that the…