Related papers: On FO2 quantifier alternation over words
We can measure the complexity of a logical formula by counting the number of alternations between existential and universal quantifiers. Suppose that an elementary first-order formula $\varphi$ (in $\mathcal{L}_{\omega,\omega}$) is…
Given any collection F of computable functions over the reals, we show that there exists an algorithm that, given any L_F-sentence \varphi containing only bounded quantifiers, and any positive rational number \delta, decides either "\varphi…
Exactly solving first-order constraints (i.e., first-order formulas over a certain predefined structure) can be a very hard, or even undecidable problem. In continuous structures like the real numbers it is promising to compute approximate…
Nominal Logic is a version of first-order logic with equality, name-binding, renaming via name-swapping and freshness of names. Contrarily to higher-order logic, bindable names, called atoms, and instantiable variables are considered as…
We study logics defined in terms of second-order monadic monoidal and groupoidal quantifiers. These are generalized quantifiers defined by monoid and groupoid word-problems, equivalently, by regular and context-free languages. We give a…
We propose a fragment of many-sorted second order logic called EQSMT and show that checking satisfiability of sentences in this fragment is decidable. EQSMT formulae have an $\exists^*\forall^*$ quantifier prefix (over variables, functions…
Fragments of first-order logic over words can often be characterized in terms of finite monoids, and identities of omega-terms are an effective mechanism for specifying classes of monoids. Huschenbett and the first author have shown how to…
We introduce first order alternating automata, a generalization of boolean alternating automata, in which transition rules are described by multisorted first order formulae, with states and internal variables given by uninterpreted…
The first-order theory of addition over the natural numbers, known as Presburger arithmetic, is decidable in double exponential time. Adding an uninterpreted unary predicate to the language leads to an undecidable theory. We sharpen the…
We show that the following problems are decidable in a rank 2 free group F_2: does a given finitely generated subgroup H contain primitive elements? and does H meet the orbit of a given word u under the action of G, the group of…
We study the model enumeration problem of the function-free, finite domain fragment of first-order logic with two variables ($FO^2$). Specifically, given an $FO^2$ sentence $\Gamma$ and a positive integer $n$, how can one enumerate all the…
Inspired by distributed algorithms, we introduce a new class of finite graph automata that recognize precisely the graph languages definable in monadic second-order logic. For the cases of words and trees, it has been long known that the…
We will prove bi-interpretability of the arithmetic $\N = \langle N, +,\cdot, 0, 1\rangle$ and the weak second order theory of $\N$ with the free monoid $\mathbb{M}_X$ of finite rank greater than 1 and with a non-trivial partially…
It is known that the alternation hierarchy of least and greatest fixpoint operators in the mu-calculus is strict. However, the strictness of the alternation hierarchy does not necessarily carry over when considering restricted classes of…
We focus on formulae $\exists X.\, \varphi(\vec{Y}, X)$ of monadic second-order logic over the full binary tree, such that the witness $X$ is a well-founded set. The ordinal rank $\mathrm{rank}(X) < \omega_1$ of such a set $X$ measures its…
We prove that there are single Henkin quantifiers such that first order logic augmented by one of these quantifiers is undecidable in the empty vocabulary. Examples of such quantifiers are given.
We study the expressive power of fragments of inclusion and independence logic defined either by restricting the number of universal quantifiers or the arity of inclusion and independence atoms in formulas. Assuming the so-called lax…
Sets with atoms serve as an alternative to ZFC foundations for mathematics, where some infinite, though highly symmetric sets, behave in a finitistic way. Therefore, one can try to carry over analysis of the classical algorithms from finite…
The Feferman-Vaught theorem provides a way of evaluating a first order sentence $\varphi$ on a disjoint union of structures by producing a decomposition of $\varphi$ into sentences which can be evaluated on the individual structures and the…
We extend the inflationary fixed-point logic, IFP, with a new kind of second-order quantifiers which have (poly-)logarithmic bounds. We prove that on ordered structures the new logic $\exists^{\log^{\omega}}\text{IFP}$ captures the limited…