Related papers: Group separation strikes back
Deciding the amalgamation property for a given class of finite structures is an important subroutine in classifying countable finitely homogeneous structures. We study the computational complexity of the amalgamation decision problem for…
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…
Consider $ A^* $, the free monoid generated by the finite alphabet $A$ with the concatenation operation. Two words have the same commutative image when one is a permutation of the symbols of the other. The commutative closure of a set $ L…
Foundational verification considers the functional correctness of programming languages with formalized semantics and uses proof assistants (e.g., Coq, Isabelle) to certify proofs. The need for verifying complex programs compels it to…
We investigate the intersection problem for finite semigroups, which asks for a given set of regular languages, represented by recognizing morphisms to finite semigroups, whether there exists a word contained in their intersection. We…
When can two regular word languages K and L be separated by a simple language? We investigate this question and consider separation by piecewise- and suffix-testable languages and variants thereof. We give characterizations of when two…
We investigate the language classes recognized by group automata over matrix groups. We present a summary of the results obtained so far together with a number of new results. We look at the computational power of time-bounded group…
The avoidability, or unavoidability of patterns in words over finite alphabets has been studied extensively. A word (pattern) over a finite set is said to be unavoidable if, for all but finitely many words, there exists a morphism mapping…
The article continues the study of the genus of regular languages that the authors introduced in a 2012 paper. Generalizing a previous result, we produce a new family of regular languages on a two-letter alphabet having arbitrary high…
We consider the satisfiability problem for the two-variable fragment of the first-order logic extended with modulo counting quantifiers and interpreted over finite words or trees. We prove a small-model property of this logic, which gives a…
Let A be a finite alphabet and let L contained in (A*)^n be an n-variable language over A. We say that L is regular if it is the language accepted by a synchronous n-tape finite state automaton, it is quasi-regular if it is accepted by an…
We investigate the decidability of the definability problem for fragments of first order logic over finite words enriched with modular predicates. Our approach aims toward the most generic statements that we could achieve, which…
We introduce an operator on classes of regular languages, the star-free closure. Our motivation is to generalize standard results of automata theory within a unified framework. Given an arbitrary input class $C$, the star-free closure…
We study regular expressions that use variables, or parameters, which are interpreted as alphabet letters. We consider two classes of languages denoted by such expressions: under the possibility semantics, a word belongs to the language if…
In this note we prove the following results: $\bullet$ If a finitely presented group $G$ admits a strongly aperiodic SFT, then $G$ has decidable word problem. More generally, for f.g. groups that are not recursively presented, there exists…
A regular language $L$ is union-free if it can be represented by a regular expression without the union operation. A union-free language is deterministic if it can be accepted by a deterministic one-cycle-free-path finite automaton; this is…
A formal series in noncommuting variables $\Sigma$ over the rationals is a mapping $\Sigma^* \to \mathbb Q$. We say that a series is commutative if the value in the output does not depend on the order of the symbols in the input. The…
Minimizing the size of finite automata is a fundamental problem in theoretical computer science. Beyond standard minimization, further reductions can be achieved by decomposing an automaton into smaller components whose languages combine…
We study the languages recognized by well-structured transition systems (WSTS) with upward and downward compatibility. Our first result shows that every pair of disjoint WSTS languages is regularly separable: there is a regular language…
The model of asynchronous programming arises in many contexts, from low-level systems software to high-level web programming. We take a language-theoretic perspective and show general decidability and undecidability results for asynchronous…