Related papers: Separating regular languages with two quantifier a…
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…
Concatenation hierarchies are classifications of regular languages. All such hierarchies are built through the same construction process: start from an initial class of languages and build new levels using two generic operations.…
We investigate the complexity of the separation problem associated to classes of regular languages. For a class C, C-separation takes two regular languages as input and asks whether there exists a third language in C which includes the…
We investigate two problems for a class C of regular word languages. The C-membership problem asks for an algorithm to decide whether an input language belongs to C. The C-separation problem asks for an algorithm that, given as input two…
We investigate quantifier alternation hierarchies in first-order logic on finite words. Levels in these hierarchies are defined by counting the number of quantifier alternations in formulas. We prove that one can decide membership of a…
We investigate the quantifier alternation hierarchy in first-order logic on finite words. Levels in this hierarchy are defined by counting the number of quantifier alternations in formulas. We prove that one can decide membership of a…
Group languages are regular languages recognized by finite groups, or equivalently by finite automata in which each letter induces a permutation on the set of states. We investigate the separation problem for this class of languages: given…
Given two languages, a separator is a third language that contains the first one and is disjoint from the second one. We investigate the following decision problem: given two regular input languages of finite words, decide whether there…
Separation is a classical problem asking whether, given two sets belonging to some class, it is possible to separate them by a set from a smaller class. We discuss the separation problem for regular languages. We give a Ptime algorithm to…
We look at concatenation hierarchies of classes of regular languages. Each such hierarchy is determined by a single class, its basis: level $n$ is built by applying the Boolean polynomial closure operator (BPol), $n$ times to the basis. A…
Separation is a classical problem in mathematics and computer science. It asks whether, given two sets belonging to some class, it is possible to separate them by another set of a smaller class. We present and discuss the separation problem…
We look at classes of languages associated to the fragment of first-order logic B{\Sigma}1 which disallows quantifier alternations. Each class is defined by choosing the set of predicates on positions that may be used. Two key such…
A separator for two languages is a third language containing the first one and disjoint from the second one. We investigate the following decision problem: given two regular input languages, decide whether there exists a locally testable…
Given a class C of word languages, the C-separation problem asks for an algorithm that, given as input two regular languages, decides whether there exists a third language in C containing the first language, while being disjoint from the…
For every class $\mathscr{C}$ of word languages, one may associate a decision problem called $\mathscr{C}$-separation. Given two regular languages, it asks whether there exists a third language in $\mathscr{C}$ containing the first…
The study of various decision problems for logic fragments has a long history in computer science. This paper is on the membership problem for a fragment of first-order logic over infinite words; the membership problem asks for a given…
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…
Polynomial closure is a standard operator which is applied to a class of regular languages. In the paper, we investigate three restrictions called left (LPol), right (RPol) and mixed polynomial closure (MPol). The first two were known while…
Over finite words, languages of dot-depth one are expressively complete for alternation-free first-order logic. This fragment is also known as the Boolean closure of existential first-order logic. Here, the atomic formulas comprise order,…
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…