First-Order and Temporal Logics for Nested Words

Nested words are a structured model of execution paths in procedural programs, reflecting their call and return nesting structure. Finite nested words also capture the structure of parse trees and other tree-structured data, such as XML. We provide new temporal logics for finite and infinite nested words, which are natural extensions of LTL, and prove that these logics are first-order expressively-complete. One of them is based on adding a "within" modality, evaluating a formula on a subword, to a logic CaRet previously studied in the context of verifying properties of recursive state machines (RSMs). The other logic, NWTL, is based on the notion of a summary path that uses both the linear and nesting structures. For NWTL we show that satisfiability is EXPTIME-complete, and that model-checking can be done in time polynomial in the size of the RSM model and exponential in the size of the NWTL formula (and is also EXPTIME-complete). Finally, we prove that first-order logic over nested words has the three-variable property, and we present a temporal logic for nested words which is complete for the two-variable fragment of first-order.Comment: revised and corrected version of Mar 03, 201

Weighted Logics for Nested Words and Algebraic Formal Power Series

Nested words, a model for recursive programs proposed by Alur and Madhusudan, have recently gained much interest. In this paper we introduce quantitative extensions and study nested word series which assign to nested words elements of a semiring. We show that regular nested word series coincide with series definable in weighted logics as introduced by Droste and Gastin. For this we establish a connection between nested words and the free bisemigroup. Applying our result, we obtain characterizations of algebraic formal power series in terms of weighted logics. This generalizes results of Lautemann, Schwentick and Therien on context-free languages

Nested quantum search and NP-complete problems

A quantum algorithm is known that solves an unstructured search problem in a number of iterations of order $\sqrt{d}$, where $d$ is the dimension of the search space, whereas any classical algorithm necessarily scales as $O(d)$. It is shown here that an improved quantum search algorithm can be devised that exploits the structure of a tree search problem by nesting this standard search algorithm. The number of iterations required to find the solution of an average instance of a constraint satisfaction problem scales as $\sqrt{d^\alpha}$, with a constant $\alpha<1$ depending on the nesting depth and the problem considered. When applying a single nesting level to a problem with constraints of size 2 such as the graph coloring problem, this constant $\alpha$ is estimated to be around 0.62 for average instances of maximum difficulty. This corresponds to a square-root speedup over a classical nested search algorithm, of which our presented algorithm is the quantum counterpart.Comment: 18 pages RevTeX, 3 Postscript figure

Novel Phases of Planar Fermionic Systems

We discuss a {\em family} of planar (two-dimensional) systems with the following phase strucure: a Fermi liquid, which goes by a second order transition (with non classical exponent even in mean-field) to an intermediate, inhomogeneous state (with nonstandard ordering momentum) , which in turn goes by a first order transition to a state with canonical order parameter. We analyze two examples: (i) a superconductor in a parallel magnetic field (which was discussed independently by Bulaevskii)for which the inhomogeneous state is obtained for $1.86 T_c \stackrel{\sim}{<} B \stackrel{\sim}{<} 1.86 \sqrt{2} T_c$ where $T_c$ is the critical temperature (in Kelvin) of the superconductor without a field and $B$ is measured in Tesla, and (ii) spinless (or, as is explained, spin polarized) fermions near half-filling where a similar, sizeable window (which grows in size with anisotropy) exists for the intermediate CDW phase at an ordering momentum different from $(\pi , \pi )$. We discuss the experimental conditions for realizing and observing these phases and the Renormalization Group approach to the transitions.Comment: ([email protected],[email protected]) 29 p Latex 4 figs uuencoded separatel