518 research outputs found
Cohen-Macaulay Du Bois singularities with a torus action of complexity one
Using Altmann-Hausen-S\"u\ss\ description of T-varieties via divisorial fans
and K\'ovacs-Schwede-Smith characterization of Du Bois singularities we prove
that any rational T-variety of complexity one which is Cohen-Macaulay and Du
Bois has rational singularities. In higher complexity, we prove an analogous
result in the case where the Chow quotient of the T-variety has Picard rank one
and trivial geometric genus.Comment: 16 page
Logic Meets Algebra: the Case of Regular Languages
The study of finite automata and regular languages is a privileged meeting
point of algebra and logic. Since the work of Buchi, regular languages have
been classified according to their descriptive complexity, i.e. the type of
logical formalism required to define them. The algebraic point of view on
automata is an essential complement of this classification: by providing
alternative, algebraic characterizations for the classes, it often yields the
only opportunity for the design of algorithms that decide expressibility in
some logical fragment.
We survey the existing results relating the expressibility of regular
languages in logical fragments of MSO[S] with algebraic properties of their
minimal automata. In particular, we show that many of the best known results in
this area share the same underlying mechanics and rely on a very strong
relation between logical substitutions and block-products of pseudovarieties of
monoid. We also explain the impact of these connections on circuit complexity
theory.Comment: 37 page
Languages of Dot-depth One over Infinite Words
Over finite words, languages of dot-depth one are expressively complete for
alternation-free first-order logic. This fragment is also known as the Boolean
closure of existential first-order logic. Here, the atomic formulas comprise
order, successor, minimum, and maximum predicates. Knast (1983) has shown that
it is decidable whether a language has dot-depth one. We extend Knast's result
to infinite words. In particular, we describe the class of languages definable
in alternation-free first-order logic over infinite words, and we give an
effective characterization of this fragment. This characterization has two
components. The first component is identical to Knast's algebraic property for
finite words and the second component is a topological property, namely being a
Boolean combination of Cantor sets.
As an intermediate step we consider finite and infinite words simultaneously.
We then obtain the results for infinite words as well as for finite words as
special cases. In particular, we give a new proof of Knast's Theorem on
languages of dot-depth one over finite words.Comment: Presented at LICS 201
Endomorphisms of the lattice of epigroup varieties
We examine varieties of epigroups as unary semigroups, that is semigroups
equipped with an additional unary operation of pseudoinversion. The article
contains two main results. The first of them indicates a countably infinite
family of injective endomorphisms of the lattice of all epigroup varieties. An
epigroup variety is said to be a variety of finite degree if all its
nilsemigroups are nilpotent. The second result of the article provides a
characterization of epigroup varieties of finite degree in a language of
identities and in terms of minimal forbidden subvarieties. Note that the first
result is essentially used in the proof of the second one.Comment: In comparison with the previous version, we eliminate a few typos
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Representation Theory of Finite Semigroups, Semigroup Radicals and Formal Language Theory
In this paper we characterize the congruence associated to the direct sum of
all irreducible representations of a finite semigroup over an arbitrary field,
generalizing results of Rhodes for the field of complex numbers. Applications
are given to obtain many new results, as well as easier proofs of several
results in the literature, involving: triangularizability of finite semigroups;
which semigroups have (split) basic semigroup algebras, two-sided semidirect
product decompositions of finite monoids; unambiguous products of rational
languages; products of rational languages with counter; and \v{C}ern\'y's
conjecture for an important class of automata
On FO2 quantifier alternation over words
We show that each level of the quantifier alternation hierarchy within
FO^2[<] -- the 2-variable fragment of the first order logic of order on words
-- is a variety of languages. We then use the notion of condensed rankers, a
refinement of the rankers defined by Weis and Immerman, to produce a decidable
hierarchy of varieties which is interwoven with the quantifier alternation
hierarchy -- and conjecturally equal to it. It follows that the latter
hierarchy is decidable within one unit: given a formula alpha in FO^2[<], one
can effectively compute an integer m such that alpha is equivalent to a formula
with at most m+1 alternating blocks of quantifiers, but not to a formula with
only m-1 blocks. This is a much more precise result than what is known about
the quantifier alternation hierarchy within FO[<], where no decidability result
is known beyond the very first levels
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