Bounds on the Automata Size for Presburger Arithmetic

Automata provide a decision procedure for Presburger arithmetic. However, until now only crude lower and upper bounds were known on the sizes of the automata produced by this approach. In this paper, we prove an upper bound on the the number of states of the minimal deterministic automaton for a Presburger arithmetic formula. This bound depends on the length of the formula and the quantifiers occurring in the formula. The upper bound is established by comparing the automata for Presburger arithmetic formulas with the formulas produced by a quantifier elimination method. We also show that our bound is tight, even for nondeterministic automata. Moreover, we provide optimal automata constructions for linear equations and inequations

Presburger arithmetic, rational generating functions, and quasi-polynomials

Presburger arithmetic is the first-order theory of the natural numbers with addition (but no multiplication). We characterize sets that can be defined by a Presburger formula as exactly the sets whose characteristic functions can be represented by rational generating functions; a geometric characterization of such sets is also given. In addition, if p=(p_1,...,p_n) are a subset of the free variables in a Presburger formula, we can define a counting function g(p) to be the number of solutions to the formula, for a given p. We show that every counting function obtained in this way may be represented as, equivalently, either a piecewise quasi-polynomial or a rational generating function. Finally, we translate known computational complexity results into this setting and discuss open directions.Comment: revised, including significant additions explaining computational complexity results. To appear in Journal of Symbolic Logic. Extended abstract in ICALP 2013. 17 page

Approaching Arithmetic Theories with Finite-State Automata

The automata-theoretic approach provides an elegant method for deciding linear arithmetic theories. This approach has recently been instrumental for settling long-standing open problems about the complexity of deciding the existential fragments of Büchi arithmetic and linear arithmetic over p-adic fields. In this article, which accompanies an invited talk, we give a high-level exposition of the NP upper bound for existential Büchi arithmetic, obtain some derived results, and further discuss some open problems

On the Complexity of Quantified Integer Programming

Quantified integer programming is the problem of deciding assertions of the form Q_k x_k ... forall x_2 exists x_1 : A * x >= c where vectors of variables x_k,..,x_1 form the vector x, all variables are interpreted over N (alternatively, over Z), and A and c are a matrix and vector over Z of appropriate sizes. We show in this paper that quantified integer programming with alternation depth k is complete for the kth level of the polynomial hierarchy

Subclasses of Presburger Arithmetic and the Weak EXP Hierarchy

It is shown that for any fixed $i>0$, the $\Sigma_{i+1}$-fragment of Presburger arithmetic, i.e., its restriction to $i+1$ quantifier alternations beginning with an existential quantifier, is complete for $\mathsf{\Sigma}^{\mathsf{EXP}}_{i}$, the $i$-th level of the weak EXP hierarchy, an analogue to the polynomial-time hierarchy residing between $\mathsf{NEXP}$ and $\mathsf{EXPSPACE}$. This result completes the computational complexity landscape for Presburger arithmetic, a line of research which dates back to the seminal work by Fischer & Rabin in 1974. Moreover, we apply some of the techniques developed in the proof of the lower bound in order to establish bounds on sets of naturals definable in the $\Sigma_1$-fragment of Presburger arithmetic: given a $\Sigma_1$-formula $\Phi(x)$, it is shown that the set of non-negative solutions is an ultimately periodic set whose period is at most doubly-exponential and that this bound is tight.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé goes elementarily automatic for structures of bounded degree

International audienceMany relational structures are automatically presentable, i.e. elements of the domain can be seen as words over a finite alphabet and equality and other atomic relations are represented with finite automata. The first-order theories over such structures are known to be primitive recursive, which is shown by the inductive construction of an automaton representing any relation definable in the first-order logic. We propose a general method based on Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé games to give upper bounds on the size of these automata and on the time required to build them. We apply this method for two different automatic structures which have elementary decision procedures, Presburger Arithmetic and automatic structures of bounded degree. For the latter no upper bound on the size of the automata was known. We conclude that the very general and simple automata-based algorithm works well to decide the first-order theories over these structures

The complexity of Presburger arithmetic with power or powers

We investigate expansions of Presburger arithmetic (Pa), i.e., the theory of the integers with addition and order, with additional structure related to exponentiation: either a function that takes a number to the power of 2, or a predicate 2^ℕ for the powers of 2. The latter theory, denoted Pa(2^ℕ(·)), was introduced by Büchi as a first attempt at characterizing the sets of tuples of numbers that can be expressed using finite automata; Büchi’s method does not give an elementary upper bound, and the complexity of this theory has been open. The former theory, denoted as Pa(λx.2^|x|), was shown decidable by Semenov; while the decision procedure for this theory differs radically from the automata-based method proposed by Büchi, Semenov’s method is also non-elementary. And in fact, the theory with the power function has a non-elementary lower bound. In this paper, we show that while Semenov’s and Büchi’s approaches yield non-elementary blow-ups for Pa(2^ℕ(·)), the theory is in fact decidable in triply exponential time, similarly to the best known quantifier-elimination algorithm for Pa. We also provide a NExpTime upper bound for the existential fragment of Pa(λx.2^|x|), a step towards a finer-grained analysis of its complexity. Both these results are established by analyzing a single parameterized satisfiability algorithm for Pa(λx.2^|x|), which can be specialized to either the setting of Pa(2^ℕ(·)) or the existential theory of Pa(λx.2^|x|). Besides the new upper bounds for the existential theory of Pa(λx.2^|x|) and Pa(2^ℕ(·)), we believe our algorithm provides new intuition for the decidability of these theories, and for the features that lead to non-elementary blow-ups

The Complexity of Presburger arithmetic with power or powers

We investigate expansions of Presburger arithmetic (Pa), i.e., the theory of the integers with addition and order, with additional structure related to exponentiation: either a function that takes a number to the power of 2, or a predicate 2^ℕ for the powers of 2. The latter theory, denoted Pa(2^ℕ(·)), was introduced by Büchi as a first attempt at characterizing the sets of tuples of numbers that can be expressed using finite automata; Büchi’s method does not give an elementary upper bound, and the complexity of this theory has been open. The former theory, denoted as Pa(λx.2^|x|), was shown decidable by Semenov; while the decision procedure for this theory differs radically from the automata-based method proposed by Büchi, Semenov’s method is also non-elementary. And in fact, the theory with the power function has a non-elementary lower bound. In this paper, we show that while Semenov’s and Büchi’s approaches yield non-elementary blow-ups for Pa(2^ℕ(·)), the theory is in fact decidable in triply exponential time, similarly to the best known quantifier-elimination algorithm for Pa. We also provide a NExpTime upper bound for the existential fragment of Pa(λx.2^|x|), a step towards a finer-grained analysis of its complexity. Both these results are established by analyzing a single parameterized satisfiability algorithm for Pa(λx.2^|x|), which can be specialized to either the setting of Pa(2^ℕ(·)) or the existential theory of Pa(λx.2^|x|). Besides the new upper bounds for the existential theory of Pa(λx.2^|x|) and Pa(2^ℕ(·)), we believe our algorithm provides new intuition for the decidability of these theories, and for the features that lead to non-elementary blow-ups