Parallel Multivariate Meta-Theorems

Fixed-parameter tractability is based on the observation that many hard problems become tractable even on large inputs as long as certain input parameters are small. Originally, "tractable" just meant "solvable in polynomial time," but especially modern hardware raises the question of whether we can also achieve "solvable in polylogarithmic parallel time." A framework for this study of parallel fixed-parameter tractability is available and a number of isolated algorithmic results have been obtained in recent years, but one of the unifying core tools of classical FPT theory has been missing: algorithmic meta-theorems. We establish two such theorems by giving new upper bounds on the circuit depth necessary to solve the model checking problem for monadic second-order logic, once parameterized by the tree width and the formula (this is a parallel version of Courcelle\u27s Theorem) and once by the tree depth and the formula. For our proofs we refine the analysis of earlier algorithms, especially of Bodlaender\u27s, but also need to add new ideas, especially in the context where the parallel runtime is bounded by a function of the parameter and does not depend on the length of the input

Model Checking CTL is Almost Always Inherently Sequential

The model checking problem for CTL is known to be P-complete (Clarke, Emerson, and Sistla (1986), see Schnoebelen (2002)). We consider fragments of CTL obtained by restricting the use of temporal modalities or the use of negations—restrictions already studied for LTL by Sistla and Clarke (1985) and Markey (2004). For all these fragments, except for the trivial case without any temporal operator, we systematically prove model checking to be either inherently sequential (P-complete) or very efficiently parallelizable (LOGCFL-complete). For most fragments, however, model checking for CTL is already P-complete. Hence our results indicate that in most applications, approaching CTL model checking by parallelism will not result in the desired speed up. We also completely determine the complexity of the model checking problem for all fragments of the extensions ECTL, CTL +, and ECTL +

Model Checking CTL is Almost Always Inherently Sequential

The model checking problem for CTL is known to be P-complete (Clarke, Emerson, and Sistla (1986), see Schnoebelen (2002)). We consider fragments of CTL obtained by restricting the use of temporal modalities or the use of negations---restrictions already studied for LTL by Sistla and Clarke (1985) and Markey (2004). For all these fragments, except for the trivial case without any temporal operator, we systematically prove model checking to be either inherently sequential (P-complete) or very efficiently parallelizable (LOGCFL-complete). For most fragments, however, model checking for CTL is already P-complete. Hence our results indicate that, in cases where the combined complexity is of relevance, approaching CTL model checking by parallelism cannot be expected to result in any significant speedup. We also completely determine the complexity of the model checking problem for all fragments of the extensions ECTL, CTL+, and ECTL+

A taxonomy of problems with fast parallel algorithms

The class NC consists of problems solvable very fast (in time polynomial in log n) in parallel with a feasible (polynomial) number of processors. Many natural problems in NC are known; in this paper an attempt is made to identify important subclasses of NC and give interesting examples in each subclass. The notion of NC1-reducibility is introduced and used throughout (problem R is NC1-reducible to problem S if R can be solved with uniform log-depth circuits using oracles for S). Problems complete with respect to this reducibility are given for many of the subclasses of NC. A general technique, the “parallel greedy algorithm,” is identified and used to show that finding a minimum spanning forest of a graph is reducible to the graph accessibility problem and hence is in NC2 (solvable by uniform Boolean circuits of depth O(log2 n) and polynomial size). The class LOGCFL is given a new characterization in terms of circuit families. The class DET of problems reducible to integer determinants is defined and many examples given. A new problem complete for deterministic polynomial time is given, namely, finding the lexicographically first maximal clique in a graph. This paper is a revised version of S. A. Cook, (1983, in “Proceedings 1983 Intl. Found. Comut. Sci. Conf.,” Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 158, pp. 78–93, Springer-Verlag, Berlin/New York)

Enumeration of the Monomials of a Polynomial and Related Complexity Classes

We study the problem of generating monomials of a polynomial in the context of enumeration complexity. In this setting, the complexity measure is the delay between two solutions and the total time. We present two new algorithms for restricted classes of polynomials, which have a good delay and the same global running time as the classical ones. Moreover they are simple to describe, use little evaluation points and one of them is parallelizable. We introduce three new complexity classes, TotalPP, IncPP and DelayPP, which are probabilistic counterparts of the most common classes for enumeration problems, hoping that randomization will be a tool as strong for enumeration as it is for decision. Our interpolation algorithms proves that a lot of interesting problems are in these classes like the enumeration of the spanning hypertrees of a 3-uniform hypergraph. Finally we give a method to interpolate a degree 2 polynomials with an acceptable (incremental) delay. We also prove that finding a specified monomial in a degree 2 polynomial is hard unless RP = NP. It suggests that there is no algorithm with a delay as good (polynomial) as the one we achieve for multilinear polynomials