194 research outputs found
An Efficient Normalisation Procedure for Linear Temporal Logic and Very Weak Alternating Automata
In the mid 80s, Lichtenstein, Pnueli, and Zuck proved a classical theorem
stating that every formula of Past LTL (the extension of LTL with past
operators) is equivalent to a formula of the form , where
and contain only past operators. Some years later, Chang,
Manna, and Pnueli built on this result to derive a similar normal form for LTL.
Both normalisation procedures have a non-elementary worst-case blow-up, and
follow an involved path from formulas to counter-free automata to star-free
regular expressions and back to formulas. We improve on both points. We present
a direct and purely syntactic normalisation procedure for LTL yielding a normal
form, comparable to the one by Chang, Manna, and Pnueli, that has only a single
exponential blow-up. As an application, we derive a simple algorithm to
translate LTL into deterministic Rabin automata. The algorithm normalises the
formula, translates it into a special very weak alternating automaton, and
applies a simple determinisation procedure, valid only for these special
automata.Comment: This is the extended version of the referenced conference paper and
contains an appendix with additional materia
Efficient Normalization of Linear Temporal Logic
In the mid 80s, Lichtenstein, Pnueli, and Zuck proved a classical theorem
stating that every formula of Past LTL (the extension of LTL with past
operators) is equivalent to a formula of the form , where
and contain only past operators. Some years later, Chang,
Manna, and Pnueli built on this result to derive a similar normal form for LTL.
Both normalization procedures have a non-elementary worst-case blow-up, and
follow an involved path from formulas to counter-free automata to star-free
regular expressions and back to formulas. We improve on both points. We present
direct and purely syntactic normalization procedures for LTL, yielding a normal
form very similar to the one by Chang, Manna, and Pnueli, that exhibit only a
single exponential blow-up. As an application, we derive a simple algorithm to
translate LTL into deterministic Rabin automata. The algorithm normalizes the
formula, translates it into a special very weak alternating automaton, and
applies a simple determinization procedure, valid only for these special
automata.Comment: Submitted to J. ACM. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:2304.08872, arXiv:2005.0047
Satisfiability Checking of Multi-Variable TPTL with Unilateral Intervals Is PSPACE-Complete
We investigate the decidability of the fragment of Timed
Propositional Temporal Logic (TPTL). We show that the satisfiability checking
of TPTL is PSPACE-complete. Moreover, even its 1-variable fragment
(1-TPTL) is strictly more expressive than Metric Interval Temporal
Logic (MITL) for which satisfiability checking is EXPSPACE complete. Hence, we
have a strictly more expressive logic with computationally easier
satisfiability checking. To the best of our knowledge, TPTL is the
first multi-variable fragment of TPTL for which satisfiability checking is
decidable without imposing any bounds/restrictions on the timed words (e.g.
bounded variability, bounded time, etc.). The membership in PSPACE is obtained
by a reduction to the emptiness checking problem for a new "non-punctual"
subclass of Alternating Timed Automata with multiple clocks called Unilateral
Very Weak Alternating Timed Automata (VWATA) which we prove to be
in PSPACE. We show this by constructing a simulation equivalent
non-deterministic timed automata whose number of clocks is polynomial in the
size of the given VWATA.Comment: Accepted in Concur 202
Finite-State Abstractions for Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic
Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic (PCTL) is the established temporal
logic for probabilistic verification of discrete-time Markov chains. Probabilistic
model checking is a technique that verifies or refutes whether a property
specified in this logic holds in a Markov chain. But Markov chains are often
infinite or too large for this technique to apply. A standard solution to
this problem is to convert the Markov chain to an abstract model and to
model check that abstract model. The problem this thesis therefore studies
is whether or when such finite abstractions of Markov chains for model
checking PCTL exist.
This thesis makes the following contributions. We identify a sizeable fragment
of PCTL for which 3-valued Markov chains can serve as finite abstractions;
this fragment is maximal for those abstractions and subsumes many
practically relevant specifications including, e.g., reachability. We also develop
game-theoretic foundations for the semantics of PCTL over Markov
chains by capturing the standard PCTL semantics via a two-player games.
These games, finally, inspire a notion of p-automata, which accept entire
Markov chains. We show that p-automata subsume PCTL and Markov
chains; that their languages of Markov chains have pleasant closure properties;
and that the complexity of deciding acceptance matches that of probabilistic
model checking for p-automata representing PCTL formulae. In addition,
we offer a simulation between p-automata that under-approximates
language containment. These results then allow us to show that p-automata
comprise a solution to the problem studied in this thesis
Static analysis of parity games: alternating reachability under parity
It is well understood that solving parity games is equivalent, up to polynomial time, to model checking of the modal mu-calculus. It is a long-standing open problem whether solving parity games (or model checking modal mu-calculus formulas) can be done in polynomial time. A recent approach to studying this problem has been the design of partial solvers, algorithms that run in polynomial time and that may only solve parts of a parity game. Although it was shown that such partial solvers can completely solve many practical benchmarks, the design of such partial solvers was somewhat ad hoc, limiting a deeper understanding of the potential of that approach. We here mean to provide such robust foundations for deeper analysis through a new form of game, alternating reachability under parity. We prove the determinacy of these games and use this determinacy to define, for each player, a monotone fixed point over an ordered domain of height linear in the size of the parity game such that all nodes in its greatest fixed point are won by said player in the parity game. We show, through theoretical and experimental work, that such greatest fixed points and their computation leads to partial solvers that run in polynomial time. These partial solvers are based on established principles of static analysis and are more effective than partial solvers studied in extant work
Static Analysis of Parity Games: Alternating Reachability Under Parity
It is well understood that solving parity games is equivalent, up to polynomial time, to model checking of the modal mu-calculus. It is a long-standing open problem whether solving parity games (or model checking modal mu-calculus formulas) can be done in polynomial time. A recent approach to studying this problem has been the design of partial solvers, algorithms that run in polynomial time and that may only solve parts of a parity game. Although it was shown that such partial solvers can completely solve many practical benchmarks, the design of such partial solvers was somewhat ad hoc, limiting a deeper understanding of the potential of that approach. We here mean to provide such robust foundations for deeper analysis through a new form of game, alternating reachability under parity. We prove the determinacy of these games and use this determinacy to define, for each player, a monotone fixed point over an ordered domain of height linear in the size of the parity game such that all nodes in its greatest fixed point are won by said player in the parity game. We show, through theoretical and experimental work, that such greatest fixed points and their computation leads to partial solvers that run in polynomial time. These partial solvers are based on established principles of static analysis and are more effective than partial solvers studied in extant work
A Simple Rewrite System for the Normalization of Linear Temporal Logic
In the mid 80s, Lichtenstein, Pnueli, and Zuck showed that every formula of
Past LTL (the extension of Linear Temporal Logic with past operators) is
equivalent to a conjunction of formulas of the form , where and contain
only past operators. Some years later, Chang, Manna, and Pnueli derived a
similar normal form for LTL. Both normalization procedures have a
non-elementary worst-case blow-up, and follow an involved path from formulas to
counter-free automata to star-free regular expressions and back to formulas. In
2020, Sickert and Esparza presented a direct and purely syntactic normalization
procedure for LTL yielding a normal form similar to the one by Chang, Manna,
and Pnueli, with a single exponential blow-up, and applied it to the problem of
constructing a succinct deterministic -automaton for a given formula.
However, their procedure had exponential time complexity in the best case. In
particular, it does not perform better for formulas that are almost in normal
form. In this paper we present an alternative normalization procedure based on
a simple set of rewrite rules
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