FO-Definability of Shrub-Depth

Shrub-depth is a graph invariant often considered as an extension of tree-depth to dense graphs. We show that the model-checking problem of monadic second-order logic on a class of graphs of bounded shrub-depth can be decided by AC^0-circuits after a precomputation on the formula. This generalizes a similar result on graphs of bounded tree-depth [Y. Chen and J. Flum, 2018]. At the core of our proof is the definability in first-order logic of tree-models for graphs of bounded shrub-depth

Interpretations of Presburger Arithmetic in Itself

Presburger arithmetic PrA is the true theory of natural numbers with addition. We study interpretations of PrA in itself. We prove that all one-dimensional self-interpretations are definably isomorphic to the identity self-interpretation. In order to prove the results we show that all linear orders that are interpretable in (N,+) are scattered orders with the finite Hausdorff rank and that the ranks are bounded in terms of the dimension of the respective interpretations. From our result about self-interpretations of PrA it follows that PrA isn't one-dimensionally interpretable in any of its finite subtheories. We note that the latter was conjectured by A. Visser.Comment: Published in proceedings of LFCS 201

On Elementary Theories of Ordinal Notation Systems based on Reflection Principles

We consider the constructive ordinal notation system for the ordinal ${\epsilon_0}$ that were introduced by L.D. Beklemishev. There are fragments of this system that are ordinal notation systems for the smaller ordinals ${\omega_n}$ (towers of ${\omega}$-exponentiations of the height $n$). This systems are based on Japaridze's provability logic $\mathbf{GLP}$. They are closely related with the technique of ordinal analysis of $\mathbf{PA}$ and fragments of $\mathbf{PA}$ based on iterated reflection principles. We consider this notation system and it's fragments as structures with the signatures selected in a natural way. We prove that the full notation system and it's fragments, for ordinals ${\ge\omega_4}$, have undecidable elementary theories. We also prove that the fragments of the full system, for ordinals ${\le\omega_3}$, have decidable elementary theories. We obtain some results about decidability of elementary theory, for the ordinal notation systems with weaker signatures.Comment: 23 page

On the Scope of the Universal-Algebraic Approach to Constraint Satisfaction

The universal-algebraic approach has proved a powerful tool in the study of the complexity of CSPs. This approach has previously been applied to the study of CSPs with finite or (infinite) omega-categorical templates, and relies on two facts. The first is that in finite or omega-categorical structures A, a relation is primitive positive definable if and only if it is preserved by the polymorphisms of A. The second is that every finite or omega-categorical structure is homomorphically equivalent to a core structure. In this paper, we present generalizations of these facts to infinite structures that are not necessarily omega-categorical. (This abstract has been severely curtailed by the space constraints of arXiv -- please read the full abstract in the article.) Finally, we present applications of our general results to the description and analysis of the complexity of CSPs. In particular, we give general hardness criteria based on the absence of polymorphisms that depend on more than one argument, and we present a polymorphism-based description of those CSPs that are first-order definable (and therefore can be solved in polynomial time).Comment: Extended abstract appeared at 25th Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 2010). This version will appear in the LMCS special issue associated with LICS 201

On Kirchberg's Embedding Problem

Kirchberg's Embedding Problem (KEP) asks whether every separable C$^*$ algebra embeds into an ultrapower of the Cuntz algebra $\mathcal{O}_2$. In this paper, we use model theory to show that this conjecture is equivalent to a local approximate nuclearity condition that we call the existence of good nuclear witnesses. In order to prove this result, we study general properties of existentially closed C$^*$ algebras. Along the way, we establish a connection between existentially closed C$^*$ algebras, the weak expectation property of Lance, and the local lifting property of Kirchberg. The paper concludes with a discussion of the model theory of $\mathcal{O}_2$. Several results in this last section are proven using some technical results concerning tubular embeddings, a notion first introduced by Jung for studying embeddings of tracial von Neumann algebras into the ultrapower of the hyperfinite II$_1$ factor.Comment: 42 pages; final version to appear in the Journal of Functional Analysi