Taylor's modularity conjecture and related problems for idempotent varieties

We provide a partial result on Taylor's modularity conjecture, and several related problems. Namely, we show that the interpretability join of two idempotent varieties that are not congruence modular is not congruence modular either, and we prove an analogue for idempotent varieties with a cube term. Also, similar results are proved for linear varieties and the properties of congruence modularity, having a cube term, congruence $n$-permutability for a fixed $n$, and satisfying a non-trivial congruence identity.Comment: 27 page

Short Definitions in Constraint Languages

A first-order formula is called primitive positive (pp) if it only admits the use of existential quantifiers and conjunction. Pp-formulas are a central concept in (fixed-template) constraint satisfaction since CSP(?) can be viewed as the problem of deciding the primitive positive theory of ?, and pp-definability captures gadget reductions between CSPs. An important class of tractable constraint languages ? is characterized by having few subpowers, that is, the number of n-ary relations pp-definable from ? is bounded by 2^p(n) for some polynomial p(n). In this paper we study a restriction of this property, stating that every pp-definable relation is definable by a pp-formula of polynomial length. We conjecture that the existence of such short definitions is actually equivalent to ? having few subpowers, and verify this conjecture for a large subclass that, in particular, includes all constraint languages on three-element domains. We furthermore discuss how our conjecture imposes an upper complexity bound of co-NP on the subpower membership problem of algebras with few subpowers

Short definitions in constraint languages

A first-order formula is called primitive positive (pp) if it only admits the use of existential quantifiers and conjunction. Pp-formulas are a central concept in (fixed-template) constraint satisfaction since CSP($\Gamma$) can be viewed as the problem of deciding the primitive positive theory of $\Gamma$, and pp-definability captures gadget reductions between CSPs. An important class of tractable constraint languages $\Gamma$ is characterized by having few subpowers, that is, the number of $n$-ary relations pp-definable from $\Gamma$ is bounded by $2^{p(n)}$ for some polynomial $p(n)$. In this paper we study a restriction of this property, stating that every pp-definable relation is definable by a pp-formula of polynomial length. We conjecture that the existence of such short definitions is actually equivalent to $\Gamma$ having few subpowers, and verify this conjecture for a large subclass that, in particular, includes all constraint languages on three-element domains. We furthermore discuss how our conjecture imposes an upper complexity bound of co-NP on the subpower membership problem of algebras with few subpowers

The Subpower Membership Problem for Finite Algebras with Cube Terms

The subalgebra membership problem is the problem of deciding if a given element belongs to an algebra given by a set of generators. This is one of the best established computational problems in algebra. We consider a variant of this problem, which is motivated by recent progress in the Constraint Satisfaction Problem, and is often referred to as the Subpower Membership Problem (SMP). In the SMP we are given a set of tuples in a direct product of algebras from a fixed finite set $\mathcal{K}$ of finite algebras, and are asked whether or not a given tuple belongs to the subalgebra of the direct product generated by a given set. Our main result is that the subpower membership problem SMP($\mathcal{K}$) is in P if $\mathcal{K}$ is a finite set of finite algebras with a cube term, provided $\mathcal{K}$ is contained in a residually small variety. We also prove that for any finite set of finite algebras $\mathcal{K}$ in a variety with a cube term, each one of the problems SMP($\mathcal{K}$), SMP($\mathbb{HS} \mathcal{K}$), and finding compact representations for subpowers in $\mathcal{K}$, is polynomial time reducible to any of the others, and the first two lie in NP