Categorical Comprehensions and Recursion

A new categorical setting is defined in order to characterize the subrecursive classes belonging to complexity hierarchies. This is achieved by means of coercion functors over a symmetric monoidal category endowed with certain recursion schemes that imitate the bounded recursion scheme. This gives a categorical counterpart of generalized safe composition and safe recursion.Comment: Comments are welcom

Provably Total Primitive Recursive Functions: Theories with Induction

A natural example of a function algebra is R (T), the class of provably total computable functions (p.t.c.f.) of a theory T in the language of first order Arithmetic. In this paper a simple characterization of that kind of function algebras is obtained. This provides a useful tool for studying the class of primitive recursive functions in R (T). We prove that this is the class of p.t.c.f. of the theory axiomatized by the induction scheme restricted to (parameter free) Δ1(T)–formulas (i.e. Σ1–formulas which are equivalent in T to Π1–formulas). Moreover, if T is a sound theory and proves that exponentiation is a total function, we characterize the class of primitive recursive functions in R (T) as a function algebra described in terms of bounded recursion (and composition). Extensions of this result are related to open problems on complexity classes. We also discuss an application to the problem on the equivalence between (parameter free) Σ1–collection and (uniform) Δ1–induction schemes in Arithmetic. The proofs lean upon axiomatization and conservativeness properties of the scheme of Δ1(T)–induction and its parameter free version

The weak pigeonhole principle for function classes in S^1_2

It is well known that S^1_2 cannot prove the injective weak pigeonhole principle for polynomial time functions unless RSA is insecure. In this note we investigate the provability of the surjective (dual) weak pigeonhole principle in S^1_2 for provably weaker function classes.Comment: 11 page

Restricted Space Algorithms for Isomorphism on Bounded Treewidth Graphs

The Graph Isomorphism problem restricted to graphs of bounded treewidth or bounded tree distance width are known to be solvable in polynomial time [Bod90],[YBFT99]. We give restricted space algorithms for these problems proving the following results: - Isomorphism for bounded tree distance width graphs is in L and thus complete for the class. We also show that for this kind of graphs a canon can be computed within logspace. - For bounded treewidth graphs, when both input graphs are given together with a tree decomposition, the problem of whether there is an isomorphism which respects the decompositions (i.e. considering only isomorphisms mapping bags in one decomposition blockwise onto bags in the other decomposition) is in L. - For bounded treewidth graphs, when one of the input graphs is given with a tree decomposition the isomorphism problem is in LogCFL. - As a corollary the isomorphism problem for bounded treewidth graphs is in LogCFL. This improves the known TC1 upper bound for the problem given by Grohe and Verbitsky [GroVer06].Comment: STACS conference 2010, 12 page

The parameterized space complexity of model-checking bounded variable first-order logic

The parameterized model-checking problem for a class of first-order sentences (queries) asks to decide whether a given sentence from the class holds true in a given relational structure (database); the parameter is the length of the sentence. We study the parameterized space complexity of the model-checking problem for queries with a bounded number of variables. For each bound on the quantifier alternation rank the problem becomes complete for the corresponding level of what we call the tree hierarchy, a hierarchy of parameterized complexity classes defined via space bounded alternating machines between parameterized logarithmic space and fixed-parameter tractable time. We observe that a parameterized logarithmic space model-checker for existential bounded variable queries would allow to improve Savitch's classical simulation of nondeterministic logarithmic space in deterministic space $O(\log^2n)$. Further, we define a highly space efficient model-checker for queries with a bounded number of variables and bounded quantifier alternation rank. We study its optimality under the assumption that Savitch's Theorem is optimal

A Formalization of Polytime Functions

We present a deep embedding of Bellantoni and Cook's syntactic characterization of polytime functions. We prove formally that it is correct and complete with respect to the original characterization by Cobham that required a bound to be proved manually. Compared to the paper proof by Bellantoni and Cook, we have been careful in making our proof fully contructive so that we obtain more precise bounding polynomials and more efficient translations between the two characterizations. Another difference is that we consider functions on bitstrings instead of functions on positive integers. This latter change is motivated by the application of our formalization in the context of formal security proofs in cryptography. Based on our core formalization, we have started developing a library of polytime functions that can be reused to build more complex ones.Comment: 13 page