A Crevice on the Crane Beach: Finite-Degree Predicates

First-order logic (FO) over words is shown to be equiexpressive with FO equipped with a restricted set of numerical predicates, namely the order, a binary predicate MSB$_0$, and the finite-degree predicates: FO[Arb] = FO[<, MSB$_0$, Fin]. The Crane Beach Property (CBP), introduced more than a decade ago, is true of a logic if all the expressible languages admitting a neutral letter are regular. Although it is known that FO[Arb] does not have the CBP, it is shown here that the (strong form of the) CBP holds for both FO[<, Fin] and FO[<, MSB$_0$]. Thus FO[<, Fin] exhibits a form of locality and the CBP, and can still express a wide variety of languages, while being one simple predicate away from the expressive power of FO[Arb]. The counting ability of FO[<, Fin] is studied as an application.Comment: Submitte

Monadic Second-Order Logic with Arbitrary Monadic Predicates

We study Monadic Second-Order Logic (MSO) over finite words, extended with (non-uniform arbitrary) monadic predicates. We show that it defines a class of languages that has algebraic, automata-theoretic and machine-independent characterizations. We consider the regularity question: given a language in this class, when is it regular? To answer this, we show a substitution property and the existence of a syntactical predicate. We give three applications. The first two are to give very simple proofs that the Straubing Conjecture holds for all fragments of MSO with monadic predicates, and that the Crane Beach Conjecture holds for MSO with monadic predicates. The third is to show that it is decidable whether a language defined by an MSO formula with morphic predicates is regular.Comment: Conference version: MFCS'14, Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science Journal version: ToCL'17, Transactions on Computational Logi

Methods of class field theory to separate logics over finite residue classes and circuit complexity

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of logic and computation following peer review.Separations among the first-order logic Res(0,+,×) of finite residue classes, its extensions with generalized quantifiers, and in the presence of a built-in order are shown in this article, using algebraic methods from class field theory. These methods include classification of spectra of sentences over finite residue classes as systems of congruences, and the study of their h-densities over the set of all prime numbers, for various functions h on the natural numbers. Over ordered structures, the logic of finite residue classes and extensions are known to capture DLOGTIME-uniform circuit complexity classes ranging from AC to TC. Separating these circuit complexity classes is directly related to classifying the h-density of spectra of sentences in the corresponding logics of finite residue classes. General conditions are further shown in this work for a logic over the finite residue classes to have a sentence whose spectrum has no h-density. A corollary of this characterization of spectra of sentences is that in Res(0,+,×,<)+M, the logic of finite residue classes with built-in order and extended with the majority quantifier M, there are sentences whose spectrum have no exponential density.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft