English

O-Minimal Invariants for Discrete-Time Dynamical Systems

Computational Complexity 2020-05-13 v2 Logic in Computer Science Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

Termination analysis of linear loops plays a key r\^{o}le in several areas of computer science, including program verification and abstract interpretation. Already for the simplest variants of linear loops the question of termination relates to deep open problems in number theory, such as the decidability of the Skolem and Positivity Problems for linear recurrence sequences, or equivalently reachability questions for discrete-time linear dynamical systems. In this paper, we introduce the class of \emph{o-minimal invariants}, which is broader than any previously considered, and study the decidability of the existence and algorithmic synthesis of such invariants as certificates of non-termination for linear loops equipped with a large class of halting conditions. We establish two main decidability results, one of them conditional on Schanuel's conjecture in transcendental number theory.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1802.09263,
  title  = {O-Minimal Invariants for Discrete-Time Dynamical Systems},
  author = {Shaull Almagor and Dmitry Chistikov and Joël Ouaknine and James Worrell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.09263},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T00:33:21.634Z