A Dichotomy Theorem for the Inverse Satisfiability Problem

The inverse satisfiability problem over a set of Boolean relations Gamma (Inv-SAT(Gamma)) is the computational decision problem of, given a set of models R, deciding whether there exists a SAT(Gamma) instance with R as its set of models. This problem is co-NP-complete in general and a dichotomy theorem for finite ? containing the constant Boolean relations was obtained by Kavvadias and Sideri. In this paper we remove the latter condition and prove that Inv-SAT(Gamma) is always either tractable or co-NP-complete for all finite sets of relations Gamma, thus solving a problem open since 1998. Very little of the techniques used by Kavvadias and Sideri are applicable and we have to turn to more recently developed algebraic approaches based on partial polymorphisms. We also consider the case when ? is infinite, where the situation differs markedly from the case of SAT. More precisely, we show that there exists infinite Gamma such that Inv-SAT(Gamma) is tractable even though there exists finite Delta is subset of Gamma such that Inv-SAT(Delta) is co-NP-complete

The Connectivity of Boolean Satisfiability: Computational and Structural Dichotomies

Boolean satisfiability problems are an important benchmark for questions about complexity, algorithms, heuristics and threshold phenomena. Recent work on heuristics, and the satisfiability threshold has centered around the structure and connectivity of the solution space. Motivated by this work, we study structural and connectivity-related properties of the space of solutions of Boolean satisfiability problems and establish various dichotomies in Schaefer's framework. On the structural side, we obtain dichotomies for the kinds of subgraphs of the hypercube that can be induced by the solutions of Boolean formulas, as well as for the diameter of the connected components of the solution space. On the computational side, we establish dichotomy theorems for the complexity of the connectivity and st-connectivity questions for the graph of solutions of Boolean formulas. Our results assert that the intractable side of the computational dichotomies is PSPACE-complete, while the tractable side - which includes but is not limited to all problems with polynomial time algorithms for satisfiability - is in P for the st-connectivity question, and in coNP for the connectivity question. The diameter of components can be exponential for the PSPACE-complete cases, whereas in all other cases it is linear; thus, small diameter and tractability of the connectivity problems are remarkably aligned. The crux of our results is an expressibility theorem showing that in the tractable cases, the subgraphs induced by the solution space possess certain good structural properties, whereas in the intractable cases, the subgraphs can be arbitrary

The Connectivity of Boolean Satisfiability: Dichotomies for Formulas and Circuits

For Boolean satisfiability problems, the structure of the solution space is characterized by the solution graph, where the vertices are the solutions, and two solutions are connected iff they differ in exactly one variable. In 2006, Gopalan et al. studied connectivity properties of the solution graph and related complexity issues for CSPs, motivated mainly by research on satisfiability algorithms and the satisfiability threshold. They proved dichotomies for the diameter of connected components and for the complexity of the st-connectivity question, and conjectured a trichotomy for the connectivity question. Recently, we were able to establish the trichotomy [arXiv:1312.4524]. Here, we consider connectivity issues of satisfiability problems defined by Boolean circuits and propositional formulas that use gates, resp. connectives, from a fixed set of Boolean functions. We obtain dichotomies for the diameter and the two connectivity problems: on one side, the diameter is linear in the number of variables, and both problems are in P, while on the other side, the diameter can be exponential, and the problems are PSPACE-complete. For partially quantified formulas, we show an analogous dichotomy.Comment: 20 pages, several improvement

Generalized Satisfiability Problems via Operator Assignments

Schaefer introduced a framework for generalized satisfiability problems on the Boolean domain and characterized the computational complexity of such problems. We investigate an algebraization of Schaefer's framework in which the Fourier transform is used to represent constraints by multilinear polynomials in a unique way. The polynomial representation of constraints gives rise to a relaxation of the notion of satisfiability in which the values to variables are linear operators on some Hilbert space. For the case of constraints given by a system of linear equations over the two-element field, this relaxation has received considerable attention in the foundations of quantum mechanics, where such constructions as the Mermin-Peres magic square show that there are systems that have no solutions in the Boolean domain, but have solutions via operator assignments on some finite-dimensional Hilbert space. We obtain a complete characterization of the classes of Boolean relations for which there is a gap between satisfiability in the Boolean domain and the relaxation of satisfiability via operator assignments. To establish our main result, we adapt the notion of primitive-positive definability (pp-definability) to our setting, a notion that has been used extensively in the study of constraint satisfaction problems. Here, we show that pp-definability gives rise to gadget reductions that preserve satisfiability gaps. We also present several additional applications of this method. In particular and perhaps surprisingly, we show that the relaxed notion of pp-definability in which the quantified variables are allowed to range over operator assignments gives no additional expressive power in defining Boolean relations

The number of clones determined by disjunctions of unary relations

We consider finitary relations (also known as crosses) that are definable via finite disjunctions of unary relations, i.e. subsets, taken from a fixed finite parameter set $\Gamma$. We prove that whenever $\Gamma$ contains at least one non-empty relation distinct from the full carrier set, there is a countably infinite number of polymorphism clones determined by relations that are disjunctively definable from $\Gamma$. Finally, we extend our result to finitely related polymorphism clones and countably infinite sets $\Gamma$.Comment: manuscript to be published in Theory of Computing System