Related papers: Monadic second-order logic and the domino problem …
A group is called square-like if it is universally equivalent to its direct square. It is known that the class of all square-like groups admits an explicit first order axiomatization but its theory is undecidable. We prove that the theory…
We determine the maximum order of an element in the critical group of a strongly regular graph, and show that it achieves the spectral bound due to Lorenzini. We extend the result to all graphs with exactly two non-zero Laplacian…
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…
Some families of graphs, such as the n-cubes and Sierpinski gaskets, are self-similar. In this paper we show how such recursive structure can be used systematically to prove isoperimetric theorems.
Higher-order pushdown systems and ground tree rewriting systems can be seen as extensions of suffix word rewriting systems. Both classes generate infinite graphs with interesting logical properties. Indeed, the model-checking problem for…
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 present a Myhill-Nerode theorem for hypergraphs. The theorem involves an operation which takes two input structures and produces a hypergraph as output. Using this operation, we define a Myhill-Nerode-type equivalence relation and show…
A graph $\Gamma$ labelled by a set $S$ defines a group $G(\Gamma)$ whose generators are the set of labels $S$ and whose relations are all words which can be read on closed paths of this graph. We introduce the notion of aspherical graph and…
For each nonnegative integer $g$, we classify the ramification types and monodromy groups of indecomposable coverings of complex curves $f: X\to Y$ where $X$ has genus $g$, under the hypothesis that $n:=\deg(f)$ is sufficiently large and…
Weighted monadic second-order logic is a weighted extension of monadic second-order logic that captures exactly the behaviour of weighted automata. Its semantics is parameterized with respect to a semiring on which the values that weighted…
We study the algorithmic decidability of the domination number in the Erdos-Renyi random graph model $G(n,p)$. We show that for a carefully chosen edge probability $p=p(n)$, the domination problem exhibits a strong irreducible property.…
We survey the known group properties that a sequence of finite groups or group actions needs to satisfy to admit subsets of bounded cardinality producing expander Cayley or Schreier graphs. We prove that an infinite amenable group and…
Combining ideas from distributed algorithms and alternating automata, we introduce a new class of finite graph automata that recognize precisely the languages of finite graphs definable in monadic second-order logic. By restricting…
We consider the bimodal language, where the first modality is interpreted by a binary relation in the standard way, and the second is interpreted by the relation of inequality. It follows from Hughes (1990), that in this language,…
Brambles were introduced as the dual notion to treewidth, one of the most central concepts of the graph minor theory of Robertson and Seymour. Recently, Grohe and Marx showed that there are graphs G, in which every bramble of order larger…
We study the first-order model checking problem on two generalisations of pushdown graphs. The first class is the class of nested pushdown trees. The other is the class of collapsible pushdown graphs. Our main results are the following.…
We consider a specific class of tree structures that can represent basic structures in linguistics and computer science such as XML documents, parse trees, and treebanks, namely, finite node-labeled sibling-ordered trees. We present…
Every self-similar group acts on the space $X^\omega$ of infinite words over some alphabet $X$. We study the Schreier graphs $\Gamma_w$ for $w\in X^\omega$ of the action of self-similar groups generated by bounded automata on the space…
In this paper, we continue the classification work done in the first paper of the same name. With careful modifications of our previous approach, we are able to deduce (with two notable exceptions) which members of the previously introduced…
We study the Tutte polynomial of two infinite families of finite graphs. These are the Schreier graphs associated with the action of two well-known self-similar groups acting on the binary rooted tree by automorphisms: the first Grigorchuk…