Related papers: Slicewise definability in first-order logic with b…
Fix an integer h>=1. In the universe of coloured trees of height at most h, we prove that for any graph decision problem defined by an MSO formula with r quantifiers, there exists a set of kernels, each of size bounded by an elementary…
We study on which classes of graphs first-order logic (FO) and monadic second-order logic (MSO) have the same expressive power. We show that for all classes C of graphs that are closed under taking subgraphs, FO and MSO have the same…
We say that a first order formula A distinguishes a graph G from another graph G' if A is true on G and false on G'. Provided G and G' are non-isomorphic, let D(G,G') denote the minimal quantifier rank of a such formula. We prove that, if G…
We tackle three optimization problems in which a colored graph, where each node is assigned a color, must be partitioned into colorful connected components. A component is defined as colorful if each color appears at most once. The problems…
We study the fine-grained complexity of counting the number of colorings and connected spanning edge sets parameterized by the cutwidth and treewidth of the graph. While decompositions of small treewidth decompose the graph with small…
We study FO+, a fragment of first-order logic on finite words, where monadic predicates can only appear positively. We show that there is an FO-definable language that is monotone in monadic predicates but not definable in FO+. This…
We study the expressive power of first-order logic with counting quantifiers, especially the $k$-variable and quantifier-rank-$q$ fragment $\mathsf{C}^k_q$, using homomorphism indistinguishability. Recently, Dawar, Jakl, and Reggio (2021)…
Lettericity is a graph parameter responsible for many attractive structural properties. In particular, graphs of bounded lettericity have bounded linear clique-width and they are well-quasi-ordered by induced subgraphs. The latter property…
We study the expressive power of first-order logic with counting quantifiers, especially the $k$-variable and quantifier-rank-$q$ fragment, using homomorphism indistinguishability. Recently, Dawar, Jakl, and Reggio~(2021) proved that two…
The number of quantifiers needed to express first-order (FO) properties is captured by two-player combinatorial games called multi-structural games. We analyze these games on binary strings with an ordering relation, using a technique we…
We study the first-order (FO) model checking problem of dense graphs, namely those which have FO interpretations in (or are FO transductions of) some sparse graph classes. We give a structural characterization of the graph classes which are…
We study the complexity of evaluating positive equality-free sentences of first-order (FO) logic over a fixed, finite structure B. This may be seen as a natural generalisation of the non-uniform quantified constraint satisfaction problem…
Let $D(G)$ be the minimum quantifier depth of a first order sentence $\Phi$ that defines a graph $G$ up to isomorphism. Let $D_0(G)$ be the version of $D(G)$ where we do not allow quantifier alternations in $\Phi$. Define $q_0(n)$ to be the…
Kuske and Schweikardt introduced the very expressive first-order counting logic FOC(P) to model database queries with counting operations. They showed that there is an efficient model-checking algorithm on graphs with bounded degree, while…
We prove that graphs G, G' satisfy the same sentences of first-order logic with counting of quantifier rank at most k if and only if they are homomorphism-indistinguishable over the class of all graphs of tree depth at most k. Here G, G'…
We show that the model-checking problem for successor-invariant first-order logic is fixed-parameter tractable on graphs with excluded topological subgraphs when parameterised by both the size of the input formula and the size of the…
We classify graphs and, more generally, finite relational structures that are identified by C2, that is, two-variable first-order logic with counting. Using this classification, we show that it can be decided in almost linear time whether a…
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…
For any graph $G$, the First-Fit (or Grundy) chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $\chi_{_{\sf FF}}(G)$, is defined as the maximum number of colors used by the First-Fit (greedy) coloring of the vertices of $G$. We call a family…
This paper studies the kernelization complexity of graph coloring problems with respect to certain structural parameterizations of the input instances. We are interested in how well polynomial-time data reduction can provably shrink…