208 research outputs found
The Arity Hierarchy in the Polyadic -Calculus
The polyadic mu-calculus is a modal fixpoint logic whose formulas define
relations of nodes rather than just sets in labelled transition systems. It can
express exactly the polynomial-time computable and bisimulation-invariant
queries on finite graphs. In this paper we show a hierarchy result with respect
to expressive power inside the polyadic mu-calculus: for every level of
fixpoint alternation, greater arity of relations gives rise to higher
expressive power. The proof uses a diagonalisation argument.Comment: In Proceedings FICS 2015, arXiv:1509.0282
The \mu-Calculus Alternation Hierarchy Collapses over Structures with Restricted Connectivity
It is known that the alternation hierarchy of least and greatest fixpoint
operators in the mu-calculus is strict. However, the strictness of the
alternation hierarchy does not necessarily carry over when considering
restricted classes of structures. A prominent instance is the class of infinite
words over which the alternation-free fragment is already as expressive as the
full mu-calculus. Our current understanding of when and why the mu-calculus
alternation hierarchy is not strict is limited. This paper makes progress in
answering these questions by showing that the alternation hierarchy of the
mu-calculus collapses to the alternation-free fragment over some classes of
structures, including infinite nested words and finite graphs with feedback
vertex sets of a bounded size. Common to these classes is that the connectivity
between the components in a structure from such a class is restricted in the
sense that the removal of certain vertices from the structure's graph
decomposes it into graphs in which all paths are of finite length. Our collapse
results are obtained in an automata-theoretic setting. They subsume,
generalize, and strengthen several prior results on the expressivity of the
mu-calculus over restricted classes of structures.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2012, arXiv:1210.202
On Modal {\mu}-Calculus over Finite Graphs with Bounded Strongly Connected Components
For every positive integer k we consider the class SCCk of all finite graphs
whose strongly connected components have size at most k. We show that for every
k, the Modal mu-Calculus fixpoint hierarchy on SCCk collapses to the level
Delta2, but not to Comp(Sigma1,Pi1) (compositions of formulas of level Sigma1
and Pi1). This contrasts with the class of all graphs, where
Delta2=Comp(Sigma1,Pi1)
On P-transitive graphs and applications
We introduce a new class of graphs which we call P-transitive graphs, lying
between transitive and 3-transitive graphs. First we show that the analogue of
de Jongh-Sambin Theorem is false for wellfounded P-transitive graphs; then we
show that the mu-calculus fixpoint hierarchy is infinite for P-transitive
graphs. Both results contrast with the case of transitive graphs. We give also
an undecidability result for an enriched mu-calculus on P-transitive graphs.
Finally, we consider a polynomial time reduction from the model checking
problem on arbitrary graphs to the model checking problem on P-transitive
graphs. All these results carry over to 3-transitive graphs.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2011, arXiv:1106.081
Disjunctive form and the modal alternation hierarchy
This paper studies the relationship between disjunctive form, a syntactic
normal form for the modal mu calculus, and the alternation hierarchy. First it
shows that all disjunctive formulas which have equivalent tableau have the same
syntactic alternation depth. However, tableau equivalence only preserves
alternation depth for the disjunctive fragment: there are disjunctive formulas
with arbitrarily high alternation depth that are tableau equivalent to
alternation-free non-disjunctive formulas. Conversely, there are
non-disjunctive formulas of arbitrarily high alternation depth that are tableau
equivalent to disjunctive formulas without alternations. This answers
negatively the so far open question of whether disjunctive form preserves
alternation depth. The classes of formulas studied here illustrate a previously
undocumented type of avoidable syntactic complexity which may contribute to our
understanding of why deciding the alternation hierarchy is still an open
problem.Comment: In Proceedings FICS 2015, arXiv:1509.0282
Fixpoint Alternation: Arithmetic, Transition Systems, and the Binary Tree
We provide an elementary proof of the fixpoint alternationhierarchy in arithmetic, which in turn allows us to simplify the proof of the modal mu-calculus alternation hierarchy. We further show that the alternation hierarchy on the binary tree is strict, resolving a problem of Niwinski
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