Related papers: Undecidability of a weak version of MSO+U
We consider the logic MSO+U, which is monadic second-order logic extended with the unbounding quantifier. The unbounding quantifier is used to say that a property of finite sets holds for sets of arbitrarily large size. We prove that the…
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 investigate the decidability of the monadic second-order (MSO) theory of the structure $\langle \mathbb{N};<,P_1, \ldots,P_d \rangle$, for various unary predicates $P_1,\ldots,P_d \subseteq \mathbb{N}$. We focus in particular on…
We prove decidability of the boundedness problem for monadic least fixed-point recursion based on positive monadic second-order (MSO) formulae over trees. Given an MSO-formula phi(X,x) that is positive in X, it is decidable whether the…
Expansions of the monadic second-order (MSO) theory of the structure $\langle \mathbb{N} ; < \rangle$ have been a fertile and active area of research ever since the publication of the seminal papers of B\"uchi and Elgot & Rabin on the…
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 consider extensions of monadic second order logic over $\omega$-words, which are obtained by adding one language that is not $\omega$-regular. We show that if the added language $L$ has a neutral letter, then the resulting logic is…
This paper shows that over infinite trees, satisfiability is decidable for weak monadic second-order logic extended by the unbounding quantifier U and quantification over infinite paths. The proof is by reduction to emptiness for a certain…
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…
We study expansions of the Weak Monadic Second Order theory of (N,<) by cardinality relations, which are predicates R(X1,...,Xn) whose truth value depends only on the cardinality of the sets X1, ...,Xn. We first provide a (definable)…
We study the model-checking problem for recursion schemes: does the tree generated by a given higher-order recursion scheme satisfy a given logical sentence. The problem is known to be decidable for sentences of the MSO logic. We prove…
We introduce a first-order theory of finite full binary trees and then identify decidable and undecidable fragments of this theory. We show that the analogue of Hilbert`s 10th Problem is undecidable by constructing a many-to-one reduction…
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 study word structures of the form $(D,<,P)$ where $D$ is either $\mathbb{N}$ or $\mathbb{Z}$, $<$ is the natural linear ordering on $D$ and $P\subseteq D$ is a predicate on $D$. In particular we show: (a) The set of recursive…
Consider a linear ordering equipped with a finite sequence of monadic predicates. If the ordering contains an interval of order type \omega or -\omega, and the monadic second-order theory of the combined structure is decidable, there exists…
We compare the expressiveness of two extensions of monadic second-order logic (MSO) over the class of finite structures. The first, counting monadic second-order logic (CMSO), extends MSO with first-order modulo-counting quantifiers,…
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 the strength of axioms needed to prove various results related to automata on infinite words and B\"uchi's theorem on the decidability of the MSO theory of $(N, {\le})$. We prove that the following are equivalent over the weak…
We study the expressive power and succinctness of order-invariant sentences of first-order (FO) and monadic second-order (MSO) logic on structures of bounded tree-depth. Order- invariance is undecidable in general and, thus, one strives for…
It was noticed by Harel in [Har86] that "one can define $\Sigma_1^1$-complete versions of the well-known Post Correspondence Problem". We first give a complete proof of this result, showing that the infinite Post Correspondence Problem in a…