Borel Ranks and Wadge Degrees of Context Free Omega Languages

We show that, from a topological point of view, considering the Borel and the Wadge hierarchies, 1-counter B\"uchi automata have the same accepting power than Turing machines equipped with a B\"uchi acceptance condition. In particular, for every non null recursive ordinal alpha, there exist some Sigma^0_alpha-complete and some Pi^0_alpha-complete omega context free languages accepted by 1-counter B\"uchi automata, and the supremum of the set of Borel ranks of context free omega languages is the ordinal gamma^1_2 which is strictly greater than the first non recursive ordinal. This very surprising result gives answers to questions of H. Lescow and W. Thomas [Logical Specifications of Infinite Computations, In:"A Decade of Concurrency", LNCS 803, Springer, 1994, p. 583-621]

A Survey of Satisfiability Modulo Theory

Satisfiability modulo theory (SMT) consists in testing the satisfiability of first-order formulas over linear integer or real arithmetic, or other theories. In this survey, we explain the combination of propositional satisfiability and decision procedures for conjunctions known as DPLL(T), and the alternative "natural domain" approaches. We also cover quantifiers, Craig interpolants, polynomial arithmetic, and how SMT solvers are used in automated software analysis.Comment: Computer Algebra in Scientific Computing, Sep 2016, Bucharest, Romania. 201

Highly Undecidable Problems For Infinite Computations

We show that many classical decision problems about 1-counter omega-languages, context free omega-languages, or infinitary rational relations, are $\Pi_2^1$-complete, hence located at the second level of the analytical hierarchy, and "highly undecidable". In particular, the universality problem, the inclusion problem, the equivalence problem, the determinizability problem, the complementability problem, and the unambiguity problem are all $\Pi_2^1$-complete for context-free omega-languages or for infinitary rational relations. Topological and arithmetical properties of 1-counter omega-languages, context free omega-languages, or infinitary rational relations, are also highly undecidable. These very surprising results provide the first examples of highly undecidable problems about the behaviour of very simple finite machines like 1-counter automata or 2-tape automata.Comment: to appear in RAIRO-Theoretical Informatics and Application

Modular, Fully-abstract Compilation by Approximate Back-translation

A compiler is fully-abstract if the compilation from source language programs to target language programs reflects and preserves behavioural equivalence. Such compilers have important security benefits, as they limit the power of an attacker interacting with the program in the target language to that of an attacker interacting with the program in the source language. Proving compiler full-abstraction is, however, rather complicated. A common proof technique is based on the back-translation of target-level program contexts to behaviourally-equivalent source-level contexts. However, constructing such a back- translation is problematic when the source language is not strong enough to embed an encoding of the target language. For instance, when compiling from STLC to ULC, the lack of recursive types in the former prevents such a back-translation. We propose a general and elegant solution for this problem. The key insight is that it suffices to construct an approximate back-translation. The approximation is only accurate up to a certain number of steps and conservative beyond that, in the sense that the context generated by the back-translation may diverge when the original would not, but not vice versa. Based on this insight, we describe a general technique for proving compiler full-abstraction and demonstrate it on a compiler from STLC to ULC. The proof uses asymmetric cross-language logical relations and makes innovative use of step-indexing to express the relation between a context and its approximate back-translation. The proof extends easily to common compiler patterns such as modular compilation and it, to the best of our knowledge, it is the first compiler full abstraction proof to have been fully mechanised in Coq. We believe this proof technique can scale to challenging settings and enable simpler, more scalable proofs of compiler full-abstraction

Tight Upper Bounds for Streett and Parity Complementation

Complementation of finite automata on infinite words is not only a fundamental problem in automata theory, but also serves as a cornerstone for solving numerous decision problems in mathematical logic, model-checking, program analysis and verification. For Streett complementation, a significant gap exists between the current lower bound $2^{\Omega(n\lg nk)}$ and upper bound $2^{O(nk\lg nk)}$, where $n$ is the state size, $k$ is the number of Streett pairs, and $k$ can be as large as $2^{n}$. Determining the complexity of Streett complementation has been an open question since the late '80s. In this paper show a complementation construction with upper bound $2^{O(n \lg n+nk \lg k)}$ for $k = O(n)$ and $2^{O(n^{2} \lg n)}$ for $k = \omega(n)$, which matches well the lower bound obtained in \cite{CZ11a}. We also obtain a tight upper bound $2^{O(n \lg n)}$ for parity complementation.Comment: Corrected typos. 23 pages, 3 figures. To appear in the 20th Conference on Computer Science Logic (CSL 2011

An Example of Pi^0_3-complete Infinitary Rational Relation

We give in this paper an example of infinitary rational relation, accepted by a 2-tape B\"{u}chi automaton, which is Pi^0_3-complete in the Borel hierarchy. Moreover the example of infinitary rational relation given in this paper has a very simple structure and can be easily described by its sections

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

The Complexity of Infinite Computations In Models of Set Theory

We prove the following surprising result: there exist a 1-counter B\"uchi automaton and a 2-tape B\"uchi automaton such that the \omega-language of the first and the infinitary rational relation of the second in one model of ZFC are \pi_2^0-sets, while in a different model of ZFC both are analytic but non Borel sets. This shows that the topological complexity of an \omega-language accepted by a 1-counter B\"uchi automaton or of an infinitary rational relation accepted by a 2-tape B\"uchi automaton is not determined by the axiomatic system ZFC. We show that a similar result holds for the class of languages of infinite pictures which are recognized by B\"uchi tiling systems. We infer from the proof of the above results an improvement of the lower bound of some decision problems recently studied by the author