English

Positional Properties in Temporal Logic

Logic in Computer Science 2026-04-29 v1 Formal Languages and Automata Theory

Abstract

We study positional properties in the context of game-based reactive synthesis. Our motivation stems from having a usable specification logic, for which tractable synthesis is guaranteed. We demonstrate that every ω\omega-regular positional property (with respect to state- or edge-labelled game graphs), is expressible in linear-time temporal logic. Additionally, we provide some necessary and sufficient conditions for when an ω\omega-regular property is positional, and identify well-behaved subclasses of ω\omega-regular positional properties. Using varieties of languages, we prove that no class of ω\omega-regular positional properties can simultaneously contain a prefix-independent property and be closed under Boolean operations. We conclude by discussing the implications on alternating-time temporal logic, where we isolate a few different fragments with tractable model checking, and compare the associated expressivity of such fragments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.25628,
  title  = {Positional Properties in Temporal Logic},
  author = {Jessica Newman and Benjamin Plummer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.25628},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:39:14.759Z