Related papers: Undecidability of a weak version of MSO+U
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…
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 prove that the theory of Monadic Second-Order logic (MSO) of the infinite binary tree extended with qualitative path-measure quantifier is undecidable. This quantifier says that the set of infinite paths in the tree that satisfies some…
We consider first-order logics of sequences ordered by the subsequence ordering, aka sequence embedding. We show that the \Sigma_2 theory is undecidable, answering a question left open by Kuske. Regarding fragments with a bounded number 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…
A set of mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) is said to be unextendible if there does not exist another basis that is unbiased with respect to the given set. Here, we prove the existence of smaller sets of MUBs in prime-squared dimensions…
We study a new extension of the weak MSO logic, talking about boundedness. Instead of a previously considered quantifier U, expressing the fact that there exist arbitrarily large finite sets satisfying a given property, we consider a…
We prove that the MSO+U logic is compositional in the following sense: whether an MSO+U formula holds in a tree T depends only on MSO+U-definable properties of the root of T and of subtrees of T starting directly below the root. Another…
We develop an algebraic notion of recognizability for languages of words indexed by countable linear orderings. We prove that this notion is effectively equivalent to definability in monadic second-order (MSO) logic. We also provide three…
We prove several decidability and undecidability results for the satisfiability and validity problems for languages that can express solutions to word equations with length constraints. The atomic formulas over this language are equality…
We show that the decidability of the first-order theory of the language that combines Boolean algebras of sets of uninterpreted elements with Presburger arithmetic operations. We thereby disprove a recent conjecture that this theory is…
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 study FO+, a fragment of first-order logic on finite words, where monadic predicates can only appear positively. We show that there is a FO-definable language that is monotone in monadic predicates but not definable in FO+. This provides…
We propose $\omega$MSO$\Join$BAPA, an expressive logic for describing countable structures, which subsumes and transcends both Counting Monadic Second-Order Logic (CMSO) and Boolean Algebra with Presburger Arithmetic (BAPA). We show that…
It is shown that order-invariance of two-variable first-logic is decidable in the finite. This is an immediate consequence of a decision procedure obtained for the finite satisfiability problem for existential second-order logic with two…
Subexponential logic is a variant of linear logic with a family of exponential connectives--called subexponentials--that are indexed and arranged in a pre-order. Each subexponential has or lacks associated structural properties of weakening…
Fix a prime $p$. We prove that the set of sentences true in all but finitely many finite extensions of $\mathbb{Q}_p$ is undecidable in the language of valued fields with a cross-section. The proof goes via reduction to characteristic $p$,…
We study Monadic Second-Order Logic (MSO) over finite words, extended with (non-uniform arbitrary) monadic predicates. We show that it defines a class of languages that has algebraic, automata-theoretic and machine-independent…
While modal extensions of decidable fragments of first-order logic are usually undecidable, their monodic counterparts, in which formulas in the scope of modal operators have at most one free variable, are typically decidable. This only…
In this work we prove the undecidability (and $\Sigma^0_1$-completeness) of several theories of semirings with fixed points. The generality of our results stems from recursion theoretic methods, namely the technique of effective…