1 research outputs found
On the Descriptive Complexity of Temporal Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Finite-domain constraint satisfaction problems are either solvable by
Datalog, or not even expressible in fixed-point logic with counting. The border
between the two regimes coincides with an important dichotomy in universal
algebra; in particular, the border can be described by a strong height-one
Maltsev condition. For infinite-domain CSPs, the situation is more complicated
even if the template structure of the CSP is model-theoretically tame. We prove
that there is no Maltsev condition that characterizes Datalog already for the
CSPs of first-order reducts of (Q;<); such CSPs are called temporal CSPs and
are of fundamental importance in infinite-domain constraint satisfaction. Our
main result is a complete classification of temporal CSPs that can be expressed
in one of the following logical formalisms: Datalog, fixed-point logic (with or
without counting), or fixed-point logic with the Boolean rank operator. The
classification shows that many of the equivalent conditions in the finite fail
to capture expressibility in Datalog or fixed-point logic already for temporal
CSPs.Comment: 57 page