On Second-Order Monadic Monoidal and Groupoidal Quantifiers

We study logics defined in terms of second-order monadic monoidal and groupoidal quantifiers. These are generalized quantifiers defined by monoid and groupoid word-problems, equivalently, by regular and context-free languages. We give a computational classification of the expressive power of these logics over strings with varying built-in predicates. In particular, we show that ATIME(n) can be logically characterized in terms of second-order monadic monoidal quantifiers

The Church Synthesis Problem with Parameters

For a two-variable formula ψ(X,Y) of Monadic Logic of Order (MLO) the Church Synthesis Problem concerns the existence and construction of an operator Y=F(X) such that ψ(X,F(X)) is universally valid over Nat. B\"{u}chi and Landweber proved that the Church synthesis problem is decidable; moreover, they showed that if there is an operator F that solves the Church Synthesis Problem, then it can also be solved by an operator defined by a finite state automaton or equivalently by an MLO formula. We investigate a parameterized version of the Church synthesis problem. In this version ψ might contain as a parameter a unary predicate P. We show that the Church synthesis problem for P is computable if and only if the monadic theory of is decidable. We prove that the B\"{u}chi-Landweber theorem can be extended only to ultimately periodic parameters. However, the MLO-definability part of the B\"{u}chi-Landweber theorem holds for the parameterized version of the Church synthesis problem

On the Monadic Second-Order Transduction Hierarchy

We compare classes of finite relational structures via monadic second-order transductions. More precisely, we study the preorder where we set C \subseteq K if, and only if, there exists a transduction {\tau} such that C\subseteq{\tau}(K). If we only consider classes of incidence structures we can completely describe the resulting hierarchy. It is linear of order type {\omega}+3. Each level can be characterised in terms of a suitable variant of tree-width. Canonical representatives of the various levels are: the class of all trees of height n, for each n \in N, of all paths, of all trees, and of all grids

On first-order expressibility of satisfiability in submodels

Let $\kappa,\lambda$ be regular cardinals, $\lambda\le\kappa$, let $\varphi$ be a sentence of the language $\mathcal L_{\kappa,\lambda}$ in a given signature, and let $\vartheta(\varphi)$ express the fact that $\varphi$ holds in a submodel, i.e., any model $\mathfrak A$ in the signature satisfies $\vartheta(\varphi)$ if and only if some submodel $\mathfrak B$ of $\mathfrak A$ satisfies $\varphi$. It was shown in [1] that, whenever $\varphi$ is in $\mathcal L_{\kappa,\omega}$ in the signature having less than $\kappa$ functional symbols (and arbitrarily many predicate symbols), then $\vartheta(\varphi)$ is equivalent to a monadic existential sentence in the second-order language $\mathcal L^{2}_{\kappa,\omega}$, and that for any signature having at least one binary predicate symbol there exists $\varphi$ in $\mathcal L_{\omega,\omega}$ such that $\vartheta(\varphi)$ is not equivalent to any (first-order) sentence in $\mathcal L_{\infty,\omega}$. Nevertheless, in certain cases $\vartheta(\varphi)$ are first-order expressible. In this note, we provide several (syntactical and semantical) characterizations of the case when $\vartheta(\varphi)$ is in $\mathcal L_{\kappa,\kappa}$ and $\kappa$ is $\omega$ or a certain large cardinal

Expansions of MSO by cardinality relations

We study expansions of the Weak Monadic Second Order theory of (N,<) by cardinality relations, which are predicates R(X1,...,Xn) whose truth value depends only on the cardinality of the sets X1, ...,Xn. We first provide a (definable) criterion for definability of a cardinality relation in (N,<), and use it to prove that for every cardinality relation R which is not definable in (N,<), there exists a unary cardinality relation which is definable in (N,<,R) and not in (N,<). These results resemble Muchnik and Michaux-Villemaire theorems for Presburger Arithmetic. We prove then that + and x are definable in (N,<,R) for every cardinality relation R which is not definable in (N,<). This implies undecidability of the WMSO theory of (N,<,R). We also consider the related satisfiability problem for the class of finite orderings, namely the question whether an MSO sentence in the language {<,R} admits a finite model M where < is interpreted as a linear ordering, and R as the restriction of some (fixed) cardinality relation to the domain of M. We prove that this problem is undecidable for every cardinality relation R which is not definable in (N,<).Comment: to appear in LMC

Subshifts as Models for MSO Logic

We study the Monadic Second Order (MSO) Hierarchy over colourings of the discrete plane, and draw links between classes of formula and classes of subshifts. We give a characterization of existential MSO in terms of projections of tilings, and of universal sentences in terms of combinations of "pattern counting" subshifts. Conversely, we characterise logic fragments corresponding to various classes of subshifts (subshifts of finite type, sofic subshifts, all subshifts). Finally, we show by a separation result how the situation here is different from the case of tiling pictures studied earlier by Giammarresi et al.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:0904.245

On factorisation forests

The theorem of factorisation forests shows the existence of nested factorisations -- a la Ramsey -- for finite words. This theorem has important applications in semigroup theory, and beyond. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the importance of this approach in the context of automata over infinite words and trees. We extend the theorem of factorisation forest in two directions: we show that it is still valid for any word indexed by a linear ordering; and we show that it admits a deterministic variant for words indexed by well-orderings. A byproduct of this work is also an improvement on the known bounds for the original result. We apply the first variant for giving a simplified proof of the closure under complementation of rational sets of words indexed by countable scattered linear orderings. We apply the second variant in the analysis of monadic second-order logic over trees, yielding new results on monadic interpretations over trees. Consequences of it are new caracterisations of prefix-recognizable structures and of the Caucal hierarchy.Comment: 27 page