Related papers: Descriptive Complexity of Finite Structures: Savin…

It is not hard to write a first order formula which is true for a given graph G but is false for any graph not isomorphic to G. The smallest number $(G) of nested quantifiers in a such formula can serve as a measure for the ``first order…

This work deals with the definability problem by quantifier-free first-order formulas over a finite algebraic structure. We show the problem to be coNP-complete and present two decision algorithms based on a semantical characterization of…

We prove near-optimal trade-offs for quantifier depth versus number of variables in first-order logic by exhibiting pairs of $n$-element structures that can be distinguished by a $k$-variable first-order sentence but where every such…

Suppose $f(x,y)$ is a binary form of degree $d$ with coefficients in a field $K \subseteq \mathbb C$. The $K$-rank of $f$ is the smallest number of $d$-th powers of linear forms over $K$ of which $f$ is a $K$-linear combination. We prove…

Let $v(F)$ denote the number of vertices in a fixed connected pattern graph $F$. We show an infinite family of patterns $F$ such that the existence of a subgraph isomorphic to $F$ is expressible by a first-order sentence of quantifier depth…

A real symmetric matrix $M$ is completely positive semidefinite if it admits a Gram representation by (Hermitian) positive semidefinite matrices of any size $d$. The smallest such $d$ is called the (complex) completely positive semidefinite…

It is well-known that every first-order property on words is expressible using at most three variables. The subclass of properties expressible with only two variables is also quite interesting and well-studied. We prove precise structure…

Let $D(G)$ be the minimum quantifier depth of a first order sentence $\Phi$ that defines a graph $G$ up to isomorphism. Let $D_0(G)$ be the version of $D(G)$ where we do not allow quantifier alternations in $\Phi$. Define $q_0(n)$ to be the…

Let $V$ be a finite relational vocabulary in which no symbol has arity greater than 2. Let $M$ be countable $V$-structure which is homogeneous, simple and 1-based. The first main result says that if $M$ is, in addition, primitive, then it…

Dmitriy Zhuk has proved that there exist relational structures which admit near-unanimity polymorphisms, but the minimum arity of such a polymorphism is large and almost matches the known upper bounds. We present a simplified and explicit…

By Fagin's Theorem, NP contains precisely those problems that can be described by formulas starting with an existential second-order quantifier, followed by only first-order quantifiers (ESO formulas). Subsequent research refined this…

We investigate the computability of algebraic closure and definable closure with respect to a collection of formulas. We show that for a computable collection of formulas of quantifier rank at most $n$, in any given computable structure,…

In this paper I consider locally finite Lie algebras of characteristic zero satisfying the condition that for every finite number of elements $x_{1}, x_{2},..., x_{k}$ of such an algebra $L$ there is finite-dimensional subalgebra $A$ which…

We investigate a hierarchy of arithmetical structures obtained by a transfinite addition of a canonic universal predicate, where the canonic universal predicate for M is defined as a minimum universal predicate for M in terms of…

Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane, and let $\mathcal C$ be a collection of $n$ simple $k$-intersecting curves, meaning that every two distinct curves of $\mathcal C$ meet in at most $k$ points. A classical theorem of Pach and…

The rank of a finite algebraic structure with a single binary operation is the minimum number of elements needed to express every other element under the closure of the operation. In the case of groups, the previous best algorithm for…

We introduce a novel concept of rank for subsets of finite metric spaces E^n_q (the set of all n-dimensional vectors over an alphabet of size q) equipped with the Hamming distance, where the rank R(A) of a subset A is defined as the number…

A first-order structure $\mathfrak{A}$ is called monadically stable iff every expansion of $\mathfrak{A}$ by unary predicates is stable. In this article we give a classification of the class $\mathcal{M}$ of $\omega$-categorical monadically…

We investigate the partial orderings of the form (P(X),\subset), where X is a relational structure and P(X) the set of the domains of its isomorphic substructures. A rough classification of countable binary structures corresponding to the…

By a 1997 result of R. Freese, an $n$-element lattice has at most $2^{n-1}$ congruences. This motivates us to define the congruence density cd$(L)$ of a finite $n$-element lattice as $|$Con$(L)|/2^{n-1}$, where $|$Con$(L)|$ is the number of…