Why Propositional Quantification Makes Modal Logics on Trees Robustly Hard?

International audienceAdding propositional quantification to the modal logics K, T or S4 is known to lead to undecid-ability but CTL with propositional quantification under the tree semantics (QCTL t) admits a non-elementary Tower-complete satisfiability problem. We investigate the complexity of strict fragments of QCTL t as well as of the modal logic K with propositional quantification under the tree semantics. More specifically, we show that QCTL t restricted to the temporal operator EX is already Tower-hard, which is unexpected as EX can only enforce local properties. When QCTL t restricted to EX is interpreted on N-bounded trees for some N ≥ 2, we prove that the satisfiability problem is AExp pol-complete; AExp pol-hardness is established by reduction from a recently introduced tiling problem, instrumental for studying the model-checking problem for interval temporal logics. As consequences of our proof method, we prove Tower-hardness of QCTL t restricted to EF or to EXEF and of the well-known modal logics K, KD, GL, S4, K4 and D4, with propositional quantification under a semantics based on classes of trees

Why Does Propositional Quantification Make Modal and Temporal Logics on Trees Robustly Hard?

Adding propositional quantification to the modal logics K, T or S4 is known to lead to undecidability but CTL with propositional quantification under the tree semantics (tQCTL) admits a non-elementary Tower-complete satisfiability problem. We investigate the complexity of strict fragments of tQCTL as well as of the modal logic K with propositional quantification under the tree semantics. More specifically, we show that tQCTL restricted to the temporal operator EX is already Tower-hard, which is unexpected as EX can only enforce local properties. When tQCTL restricted to EX is interpreted on N-bounded trees for some N >= 2, we prove that the satisfiability problem is AExpPol-complete; AExpPol-hardness is established by reduction from a recently introduced tiling problem, instrumental for studying the model-checking problem for interval temporal logics. As consequences of our proof method, we prove Tower-hardness of tQCTL restricted to EF or to EXEF and of the well-known modal logics such as K, KD, GL, K4 and S4 with propositional quantification under a semantics based on classes of trees

A Complete Axiomatisation for Quantifier-Free Separation Logic

We present the first complete axiomatisation for quantifier-free separation logic. The logic is equipped with the standard concrete heaplet semantics and the proof system has no external feature such as nominals/labels. It is not possible to rely completely on proof systems for Boolean BI as the concrete semantics needs to be taken into account. Therefore, we present the first internal Hilbert-style axiomatisation for quantifier-free separation logic. The calculus is divided in three parts: the axiomatisation of core formulae where Boolean combinations of core formulae capture the expressivity of the whole logic, axioms and inference rules to simulate a bottom-up elimination of separating connectives, and finally structural axioms and inference rules from propositional calculus and Boolean BI with the magic wand

The logic of where and while in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Medieval analyses of molecular propositions include many non-truthfunctional connectives in addition to the standard modern binary connectives (conjunction, disjunction, and conditional). Two types of non-truthfunctional molecular propositions considered by a number of 13th- and 14th-century authors are temporal and local propositions, which combine atomic propositions with ‘while’ and ‘where’. Despite modern interest in the historical roots of temporal and tense logic, medieval analyses of ‘while’ propositions are rarely discussed in modern literature, and analyses of ‘where’ propositions are almost completely overlooked. In this paper we introduce 13th- and 14th-century views on temporal and local propositions, and connect the medieval theories with modern temporal and spatial counterparts

The Effects of Bounding Syntactic Resources on Presburger LTL

International audienceLTL over Presburger constraints is the extension of LTL where the atomic formulae are quantifier-free Presburger formulae having as free variables the counters at different states of the model. This logic is known to admit undecidable satisfiability and model-checking problems. We study decidability and complexity issues for fragments of LTL with Presburger constraints obtained by restricting the syntactic resources of the formulae (the number of variables, the maximal distance between two states for which counters can be compared and, to a smaller extent, the set of Presburger constraints) while preserving the strength of the logical operators. We provide a complete picture refining known results from the literature. We show that model-checking and satisfiability problems for the fragments of LTL with difference constraints restricted to two variables and distance one and to one variable and distance two are highly undecidable, enlarging significantly the class of known undecidable fragments. On the positive side, we prove that the fragment restricted to one variable and to distance one augmented with propositional variables is pspace-complete. Since the atomic formulae can state quantitative properties on the counters, this extends some results about model-checking pushdown systems and one-counter automata. In order to establish the pspace upper bound, we show that the nonemptiness problem for Büchi one-counter automata taking values in Z and allowing zero tests and sign tests, is only nlogspace-complete. Finally, we establish that model-checking one-counter automata with complete quantifier-free Presburger LTL restricted to one variable is also pspace-complete whereas the satisfiability problem is undecidable

Specification and Verification using Temporal Logics

International audienceThis chapter illustrates two aspects of automata theory related to linear-time temporal logic LTL used for the verification of computer systems. First, we present a translation from LTL formulae to Büchi automata. The aim is to design an elementary translation which is reasonably efficient and produces small automata so that it can be easily taught and used by hand on real examples. Our translation is in the spirit of the classical tableau constructions but is optimized in several ways. Secondly, we recall how temporal operators can be defined from regular languages and we explain why adding even a single operator definable by a context-free language can lead to undecidability

Verification of qualitative Z\mathbb{Z} constraints

International audienceWe introduce an LTL-like logic with atomic formulae built over a constraint language interpreting variables in $\mathbb{Z}$. The constraint language includes periodicity constraints, comparison constraints of the form $x = y$ and $x < y$, it is closed under Boolean operations and it admits a restricted form of existential quantification. This is the largest set of qualitative constraints over $\mathbb{Z}$ known so far, shown to admit a decidable LTL extension. Such constraints are those used for instance in calendar formalisms or in abstractions of counter automata by using congruences modulo some power of two. Indeed, various programming languages perform arithmetic operators modulo some integer. We show that the satisfiability and model-checking problems (with respect to an appropriate class of constraint automata) for this logic are decidable in polynomial space improving significantly known results about its strict fragments. As a by-product, LTL model-checking over integral relational automata is proved complete for polynomial space which contrasts with the known undecidability of its CTL counterpart