Related papers: The Word Problem for Omega-Terms over the Trotter-…
The variety DA of finite monoids has a huge number of different characterizations, ranging from two-variable first-order logic FO^2 to unambiguous polynomials. In order to study the structure of the subvarieties of DA, Trotter and Weil…
We show that for any $i > 0$, it is decidable, given a regular language, whether it is expressible in the $\Sigma_i[<]$ fragment of first-order logic FO[<]. This settles a question open since 1971. Our main technical result relies on the…
We give a ranker-based description using finite-index congruences for the variety $\boldsymbol{\mathrm{DAb}}$ of finite monoids whose regular $\mathcal{D}$-classes form Abelian groups. This combinatorial description yields a normal form for…
The finite satisfiability problem of monadic second order logic is decidable only on classes of structures of bounded tree-width by the classic result of Seese (1991). We prove the following problem is decidable: Input: (i) A monadic second…
We consider the two-variable fragment FO^2[<] of first-order logic over finite words. Numerous characterizations of this class are known. Th\'erien and Wilke have shown that it is decidable whether a given regular language is definable in…
In the literature two notions of the word problem for a variety occur. A variety has a decidable word problem if every finitely presented algebra in the variety has a decidable word problem. It has a uniformly decidable word problem if…
The study of word equations (or the existential theory of equations over free monoids) is a central topic in mathematics and theoretical computer science. The problem of deciding whether a given word equation has a solution was shown to be…
By algorithmic metatheorems for a model checking problem P over infinite-state systems we mean generic results that can be used to infer decidability (possibly complexity) of P not only over a specific class of infinite systems, but over a…
Recently data trees and data words have received considerable amount of attention in connection with XML reasoning and system verification. These are trees or words that, in addition to labels from a finite alphabet, carry data values from…
In this paper we explore fundamental concepts in computational complexity theory and the boundaries of algorithmic decidability. We examine the relationship between complexity classes \textbf{P} and \textbf{NP}, where $L \in \textbf{P}$…
We consider first-order logic over the subword ordering on finite words, where each word is available as a constant. Our first result is that the $\Sigma_1$ theory is undecidable (already over two letters). We investigate the decidability…
We show that the existence of a first-order formula separating two monadic second order formulas over countable ordinal words is decidable. This extends the work of Henckell and Almeida on finite words, and of Place and Zeitoun on…
Fragments of first-order logic over words can often be characterized in terms of finite monoids or finite semigroups. Usually these algebraic descriptions yield decidability of the question whether a given regular language is definable in a…
We show that equivalence of deterministic top-down tree-to-string transducers is decidable, thus solving a long standing open problem in formal language theory. We also present efficient algorithms for subclasses: polynomial time for total…
We prove that $\omega$-languages of (non-deterministic) Petri nets and $\omega$-languages of (non-deterministic) Turing machines have the same topological complexity: the Borel and Wadge hierarchies of the class of $\omega$-languages of…
This paper tackles the problem of the existence of solutions for recursive systems of Horn clauses with second-order variables interpreted as integer relations, and harnessed by quantifier-free difference bounds arithmetic. We start by…
We give a new simple proof of the decidability of the First Order Theory of (omega^omega^i,+) and the Monadic Second Order Theory of (omega^i,<), improving the complexity in both cases. Our algorithm is based on tree automata and a new…
We investigate the decidability of the definability problem for fragments of first order logic over finite words enriched with modular predicates. Our approach aims toward the most generic statements that we could achieve, which…
The problem considered in this paper is whether an inequality of omega-terms is valid in a given level of a concatenation hierarchy of star-free languages. The main result shows that this problem is decidable for all (integer and half)…
We show that the word problem for braided monoidal categories is at least as hard as the unknotting problem. As a corollary, so is the word problem for Gray categories. We conjecture that the word problem for Gray categories is decidable.