255 research outputs found
Topological Birkhoff
One of the most fundamental mathematical contributions of Garrett Birkhoff is
the HSP theorem, which implies that a finite algebra B satisfies all equations
that hold in a finite algebra A of the same signature if and only if B is a
homomorphic image of a subalgebra of a finite power of A. On the other hand, if
A is infinite, then in general one needs to take an infinite power in order to
obtain a representation of B in terms of A, even if B is finite.
We show that by considering the natural topology on the functions of A and B
in addition to the equations that hold between them, one can do with finite
powers even for many interesting infinite algebras A. More precisely, we prove
that if A and B are at most countable algebras which are oligomorphic, then the
mapping which sends each function from A to the corresponding function in B
preserves equations and is continuous if and only if B is a homomorphic image
of a subalgebra of a finite power of A.
Our result has the following consequences in model theory and in theoretical
computer science: two \omega-categorical structures are primitive positive
bi-interpretable if and only if their topological polymorphism clones are
isomorphic. In particular, the complexity of the constraint satisfaction
problem of an \omega-categorical structure only depends on its topological
polymorphism clone.Comment: 21 page
Subsampling Mathematical Relaxations and Average-case Complexity
We initiate a study of when the value of mathematical relaxations such as
linear and semidefinite programs for constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) is
approximately preserved when restricting the instance to a sub-instance induced
by a small random subsample of the variables. Let be a family of CSPs such
as 3SAT, Max-Cut, etc., and let be a relaxation for , in the sense
that for every instance , is an upper bound the maximum
fraction of satisfiable constraints of . Loosely speaking, we say that
subsampling holds for and if for every sufficiently dense instance and every , if we let be the instance obtained by
restricting to a sufficiently large constant number of variables, then
. We say that weak subsampling holds if the
above guarantee is replaced with whenever
. We show: 1. Subsampling holds for the BasicLP and BasicSDP
programs. BasicSDP is a variant of the relaxation considered by Raghavendra
(2008), who showed it gives an optimal approximation factor for every CSP under
the unique games conjecture. BasicLP is the linear programming analog of
BasicSDP. 2. For tighter versions of BasicSDP obtained by adding additional
constraints from the Lasserre hierarchy, weak subsampling holds for CSPs of
unique games type. 3. There are non-unique CSPs for which even weak subsampling
fails for the above tighter semidefinite programs. Also there are unique CSPs
for which subsampling fails for the Sherali-Adams linear programming hierarchy.
As a corollary of our weak subsampling for strong semidefinite programs, we
obtain a polynomial-time algorithm to certify that random geometric graphs (of
the type considered by Feige and Schechtman, 2002) of max-cut value
have a cut value at most .Comment: Includes several more general results that subsume the previous
version of the paper
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
Tractability in Constraint Satisfaction Problems: A Survey
International audienceEven though the Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) is NP-complete, many tractable classes of CSP instances have been identified. After discussing different forms and uses of tractability, we describe some landmark tractable classes and survey recent theoretical results. Although we concentrate on the classical CSP, we also cover its important extensions to infinite domains and optimisation, as well as #CSP and QCSP
- âŠ