2,407 research outputs found
The FO^2 alternation hierarchy is decidable
We consider the two-variable fragment FO^2[<] of first-order logic over
finite words. Numerous characterizations of this class are known. Th\'erien and
Wilke have shown that it is decidable whether a given regular language is
definable in FO^2[<]. From a practical point of view, as shown by Weis, FO^2[<]
is interesting since its satisfiability problem is in NP. Restricting the
number of quantifier alternations yields an infinite hierarchy inside the class
of FO^2[<]-definable languages. We show that each level of this hierarchy is
decidable. For this purpose, we relate each level of the hierarchy with a
decidable variety of finite monoids. Our result implies that there are many
different ways of climbing up the FO^2[<]-quantifier alternation hierarchy:
deterministic and co-deterministic products, Mal'cev products with definite and
reverse definite semigroups, iterated block products with J-trivial monoids,
and some inductively defined omega-term identities. A combinatorial tool in the
process of ascension is that of condensed rankers, a refinement of the rankers
of Weis and Immerman and the turtle programs of Schwentick, Th\'erien, and
Vollmer
An Application of the Feferman-Vaught Theorem to Automata and Logics for<br> Words over an Infinite Alphabet
We show that a special case of the Feferman-Vaught composition theorem gives
rise to a natural notion of automata for finite words over an infinite
alphabet, with good closure and decidability properties, as well as several
logical characterizations. We also consider a slight extension of the
Feferman-Vaught formalism which allows to express more relations between
component values (such as equality), and prove related decidability results.
From this result we get new classes of decidable logics for words over an
infinite alphabet.Comment: 24 page
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