Related papers: Decidability of definability

We study first-order logic (FO) over the structure consisting of finite words over some alphabet $A$, together with the (non-contiguous) subword ordering. In terms of decidability of quantifier alternation fragments, this logic is…

We determine, up to the equivalence of first-order interdefinability, all structures which are first-order definable in the random partial order. It turns out that these structures fall into precisely five equivalence classes. We achieve…

A first-order formula is called primitive positive (pp) if it only admits the use of existential quantifiers and conjunction. Pp-formulas are a central concept in (fixed-template) constraint satisfaction since CSP($\Gamma$) can be viewed as…

A computable structure $\mathcal{A}$ is decidable if, given a formula $\varphi(\bar{x})$ of elementary first-order logic, and a tuple $\bar{a} \in \mathcal{A}$, we have a decision procedure to decide whether $\varphi$ holds of $\bar{a}$. We…

We study countable structures from the viewpoint of enumeration reducibility. Since enumeration reducibility is based on only positive information, in this setting it is natural to consider structures given by their positive atomic diagram…

Recently, symbolic structures were proposed as finite representations of potentially infinite first-order structures, where Linear Integer Arithmetic terms and formulas define the domain and interpretations of a structure. We generalize…

Let gamma be a (not necessarily finite) structure with a finite relational signature. We prove that deciding whether a given existential positive sentence holds in gamma is in Logspace or complete for the class CSP(gamma)_NP under…

Let $\Gamma$ be a centerless irreducible higher rank arithmetic lattice in characteristic zero. We prove that if $\Gamma$ is either non-uniform or is uniform of orthogonal type and dimension at least 9, then $\Gamma$ is bi-interpretable…

In this article we formally define and investigate the computational complexity of the Definability Problem for open first-order formulas (i.e., quantifier free first-order formulas) with equality. Given a logic $\mathbf{\mathcal{L}}$, the…

Let \Gamma be a structure with a finite relational signature and a first-order definition in (R;*,+) with parameters from R, that is, a relational structure over the real numbers where all relations are semi-algebraic sets. In this article,…

This work deals with the definability problem by quantifier-free first-order formulas over a finite algebraic structure. We show the problem to be coNP-complete and present two decision algorithms based on a semantical characterization of…

First-order linear real arithmetic enriched with uninterpreted predicate symbols yields an interesting modeling language. However, satisfiability of such formulas is undecidable, even if we restrict the uninterpreted predicate symbols to…

For $n\geq 3$, let $(H_n, E)$ denote the $n$-th Henson graph, i.e., the unique countable homogeneous graph with exactly those finite graphs as induced subgraphs that do not embed the complete graph on $n$ vertices. We show that for all…

On a finite structure, the polymorphism invariant relations are exactly the primitively positively definable relations. On infinite structures, these two sets of relations are different in general. Infinitary primitively positively…

Let $V$ be a finite relational vocabulary in which no symbol has arity greater than 2. Let $M$ be countable $V$-structure which is homogeneous, simple and 1-based. The first main result says that if $M$ is, in addition, primitive, then it…

In many instances in first order logic or computable algebra, classical theorems show that many problems are undecidable for general structures, but become decidable if some rigidity is imposed on the structure. For example, the set of…

Tarski initiated a logic-based approach to formal geometry that studies first-order structures with a ternary betweenness relation \beta, and a quaternary equidistance relation \equiv. Tarski established, inter alia, that the first-order…

We study property testing of properties that are definable in first-order logic (FO) in the bounded-degree graph and relational structure models. We show that any FO property that is defined by a formula with quantifier prefix…

Using a variation of the rainbow construction and various pebble and colouring games, we prove that RRA, the class of all representable relation algebras, cannot be axiomatised by any first-order relation algebra theory of bounded…

Given a subset of $X\subseteq \mathbb{R}^{n}$ we can associate with every point $x\in \mathbb{R}^{n}$ a vector space $V$ of maximal dimension with the property that for some ball centered at $x$, the subset $X$ coincides inside the ball…