Showing papers on "Undecidable problem published in 2014"

Matrix-Product Operators and States: NP-Hardness and Undecidability

Abstract: Tensor network states constitute an important variational set of quantum states for numerical studies of strongly correlated systems in condensed-matter physics, as well as in mathematical physics. This is specifically true for finitely correlated states or matrix-product operators, designed to capture mixed states of one-dimensional quantum systems. It is a well-known open problem to find an efficient algorithm that decides whether a given matrix-product operator actually represents a physical state that in particular has no negative eigenvalues. We address and answer this question by showing that the problem is provably undecidable in the thermodynamic limit and that the bounded version of the problem is NP-hard (nondeterministic-polynomial-time hard) in the system size. Furthermore, we discuss numerous connections between tensor network methods and (seemingly) different concepts treated before in the literature, such as hidden Markov models and tensor trains.

Degrees of Unsolvability

Abstract: Modern computability theory began with Turing [Turing, 1936], where he introduced the notion of a function computable by a Turing machine. Soon after, it was shown that this definition was equivalent to several others that had been proposed previously and the Church-Turing thesis that Turing computability captured precisely the informal notion of computability was commonly accepted. This isolation of the concept of computable function was one of the greatest advances of twentieth century mathematics and gave rise to the field of computability theory. Among the first results in computability theory was Church and Turing’s work on the unsolvability of the decision problem for first-order logic. Computability theory to a great extent deals with noncomputable problems. Relativized computation, which also originated with Turing, in [Turing, 1939], allows the comparison of the complexity of unsolvable problems. Turing formalized relative computation with oracle Turing machines. If a set A is computable relative to a set B, we say that A is Turing reducible to B. By identifying sets that are reducible to each other, we are led to the notion of degree of unsolvability first introduced by Post in [Post, 1944]. The degrees form a partially ordered set whose study is called degree theory. Most of the unsolvable problems that have arisen outside of computability theory are computably enumerable (c.e.). The c.e. sets can intuitively be viewed as unbounded search problems, a typical example being those formulas provable in some effectively given formal system. Reducibility allows us to isolate the most difficult c.e. problems, the complete problems. The standard method for showing that a c.e. problem is undecidable is to show that it is complete. Post [Post, 1944] asked if this technique always works, i.e., whether there is a noncomputable, incomplete c.e. set. This problem came to be known as Post’s Problem and it was origin of degree theory. Degree theory became one of the core areas of computability theory and attracted some of the most brilliant logicians of the second half of the twentieth century. The fascination with the field stems from the quite sophisticated techniques needed to solve the problems that arose, many of which are quite easy to state. The hallmark of the field is the priority method introduced by

Foundations for Decision Problems in Separation Logic with General Inductive Predicates

Abstract: We establish foundational results on the computational complexity of deciding entailment in Separation Logic with general inductive predicates whose underlying base language allows for pure formulas, pointers and existentially quantified variables. We show that entailment is in general undecidable, and ExpTime-hard in a fragment recently shown to be decidable by Iosif et al. Moreover, entailment in the base language is \(\Pi_2^{\text{P}}\)-complete, the upper bound even holds in the presence of list predicates. We additionally show that entailment in essentially any fragment of Separation Logic allowing for general inductive predicates is intractable even when strong syntactic restrictions are imposed.

Universal computably enumerable equivalence relations

Abstract: We study computably enumerable equivalence relations (ceers), under the reducibility if there exists a computable function f such that if and only if , for every . We show that the degrees of ceers under the equivalence relation generated by form a bounded poset that is neither a lower semilattice, nor an upper semilattice, and its first-order theory is undecidable. We then study the universal ceers. We show that 1) the uniformly effectively inseparable ceers are universal, but there are effectively inseparable ceers that are not universal; 2) a ceer R is universal if and only if , where denotes the halting jump operator introduced by Gao and Gerdes (answering an open question of Gao and Gerdes); and 3) both the index set of the universal ceers and the index set of the uniformly effectively inseparable ceers are -complete (the former answering an open question of Gao and Gerdes).

Verification of agent-based artifact systems

Abstract: Artifact systems are a novel paradigm for specifying and implementing business processes described in terms of interacting modules called artifacts. Artifacts consist of data and lifecycles, accounting respectively for the relational structure of the artifacts' states and their possible evolutions over time. In this paper we put forward artifact-centric multi-agent systems, a novel formalisation of artifact systems in the context of multi-agent systems operating on them. Differently from the usual process-based models of services, we give a semantics that explicitly accounts for the data structures on which artifact systems are defined. We study the model checking problem for artifact-centric multi-agent systems against specifications expressed in a quantified version of temporal-epistemic logic expressing the knowledge of the agents in the exchange. We begin by noting that the problem is undecidable in general. We identify a noteworthy class of systems that admit bisimilar, finite abstractions. It follows that we can verify these systems by investigating their finite abstractions; we also show that the corresponding model checking problem is EXPSPACE-complete. We then introduce artifact-centric programs, compact and declarative representations of the programs governing both the artifact system and the agents. We show that, while these in principle generate infinite-state systems, under natural conditions their verification problem can be solved on finite abstractions that can be effectively computed from the programs. We exemplify the theoretical results here pursued through a mainstream procurement scenario from the artifact systems literature.

Qualitative Analysis of POMDPs with Temporal Logic Specifications for Robotics Applications

Abstract: We consider partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs), that are a standard framework for robotics applications to model uncertainties present in the real world, with temporal logic specifications. All temporal logic specifications in linear-time temporal logic (LTL) can be expressed as parity objectives. We study the qualitative analysis problem for POMDPs with parity objectives that asks whether there is a controller (policy) to ensure that the objective holds with probability 1 (almost-surely). While the qualitative analysis of POMDPs with parity objectives is undecidable, recent results show that when restricted to finite-memory policies the problem is EXPTIME-complete. While the problem is intractable in theory, we present a practical approach to solve the qualitative analysis problem. We designed several heuristics to deal with the exponential complexity, and have used our implementation on a number of well-known POMDP examples for robotics applications. Our results provide the first practical approach to solve the qualitative analysis of robot motion planning with LTL properties in the presence of uncertainty.

Foundations for decision problems in separation logic with general inductive predicates

Abstract: We establish foundational results on the computational complexity of deciding entailment in Separation Logic with general inductive predicates whose underlying base language allows for pure formulas, pointers and existentially quantified variables. We show that entailment is in general undecidable, and ExpTime-hard in a fragment recently shown to be decidable by Iosif et al. Moreover, entailment in the base language is Π2P-complete, the upper bound even holds in the presence of list predicates. We additionally show that entailment in essentially any fragment of Separation Logic allowing for general inductive predicates is intractable even when strong syntactic restrictions are imposed. © 2014 Springer-Verlag.

Undecidability in Number Theory

Abstract: In these lecture notes we give sketches of classical undecidability results in number theory, like Godel’s first Incompleteness Theorem (that the first order theory of the integers in the language of rings is undecidable), Julia Robinson’s extensions of this result to arbitrary number fields and rings of integers in them, as well as to the ring of totally real integers, and Matiyasevich’s negative solution of Hilbert’s 10th problem, i.e., the undecidability of the existential first-order theory of the integers. As Hilbert’s 10th problem is still open for the rationals (i.e., the question whether the existential theory of the field of rational numbers is decidable) we also present a sketch of the fact that there is a universal definition of the ring of integers inside the field of rationals. In terms of complexity this is the simplest definition known so far. If one had an existential definition instead then Hilbert’s 10th problem over the rationals would reduce to that over the integers (and hence be, as expected, unsolvable), but, modulo a widely believed in conjecture in number theory, we also indicate why there should be no such existential definition. We conclude with a list of nice open questions in the area.

The dark side of interval temporal logic: marking the undecidability border

Abstract: Unlike the Moon, the dark side of interval temporal logics is the one we usually see: their ubiquitous undecidability. Identifying minimal undecidable interval logics is thus a natural and important issue in that research area. In this paper, we identify several new minimal undecidable logics amongst the fragments of Halpern and Shoham's logic HS, including the logic of the overlaps relation, over the classes of all finite linear orders and all linear orders, as well as the logic of the meets and subinterval relations, over the classes of all and dense linear orders. Together with previous undecidability results, this work contributes to bringing the identification of the dark side of interval temporal logics very close to the definitive picture.

All–Instances Termination of Chase is Undecidable

Abstract: We show that all–instances termination of chase is undecidable. More precisely, there is no algorithm deciding, for a given set \(\cal T\) consisting of Tuple Generating Dependencies (a.k.a. Datalog ∃ program), whether the \(\cal T\)-chase on D will terminate for every finite database instance D. Our method applies to Oblivious Chase, Semi-Oblivious Chase and – after a slight modification – also for Standard Chase. This means that we give a (negative) solution to the all–instances termination problem for all version of chase that are usually considered.

ProbReach: Verified Probabilistic Delta-Reachability for Stochastic Hybrid Systems

Abstract: We present ProbReach, a tool for verifying probabilistic reachability for stochastic hybrid systems, i.e., computing the probability that the system reaches an unsafe region of the state space. In particular, ProbReach will compute an arbitrarily small interval which is guaranteed to contain the required probability. Standard (non-probabilistic) reachability is undecidable even for linear hybrid systems. In ProbReach we adopt the weaker notion of delta-reachability, in which the unsafe region is overapproximated by a user-defined parameter (delta). This choice leads to false alarms, but also makes the reachability problem decidable for virtually any hybrid system. In ProbReach we have implemented a probabilistic version of delta-reachability that is suited for hybrid systems whose stochastic behaviour is given in terms of random initial conditions. In this paper we introduce the capabilities of ProbReach, give an overview of the parallel implementation, and present results for several benchmarks involving highly non-linear hybrid systems.

The finiteness problem for automaton semigroups is undecidable

Abstract: The finiteness problem for automaton groups and semigroups has been widely studied, several partial positive results are known. However, we prove that, in the most general case, the problem is unde...

The complexity of answering conjunctive and navigational queries over OWL 2 EL knowledge bases

Abstract: OWL 2 EL is a popular ontology language that supports role inclusions--axioms of the form S1...Sn ⊆ S that capture compositional properties of roles. Role inclusions closely correspond to context-free grammars, which was used to show that answering conjunctive queries (CQs) over OWL 2 EL knowledge bases with unrestricted role inclusions is undecidable. However, OWL 2 EL inherits from OWL 2 DL the syntactic regularity restriction on role inclusions, which ensures that role chains implying a particular role can be described using a finite automaton (FA). This is sufficient to ensure decidability of CQ answering; however, the FAs can be worst-case exponential in size so the known approaches do not provide a tight upper complexity bound. In this paper, we solve this open problem and show that answering CQs over OWL 2 EL knowledge bases is PSpace-complete in combined complexity (i.e., the complexity measured in the total size of the input). To this end, we use a novel encoding of regular role inclusions using bounded-stack pushdown automata--that is, FAs extended with a stack of bounded size. Apart from theoretical interest, our encoding can be used in practical tableau algorithms to avoid the exponential blowup due to role inclusions. In addition, we sharpen the lower complexity bound and show that the problem is PSPACE-hard even if we consider only role inclusions as part of the input (i.e., the query and all other parts of the knowledge base are fxed). Finally, we turn our attention to navigational queries over OWL 2 EL knowledge bases, and we show that answering positive, converse-free conjunctive graph XPath queries is PSPACE-complete as well; this is interesting since allowing the converse operator in queries is known to make the problem ExpTime-hard. Thus, in this paper we present several important contributions to the landscape of the complexity of answering expressive queries over description logic knowledge bases.

Automatic Compositional Synthesis of Distributed Systems

Abstract: Given the recent advances in synthesizing finite-state controllers from temporal logic specifications, the natural next goal is to synthesize more complex systems that consist of multiple distributed processes. The synthesis of distributed systems is, however, a hard and, in many cases, undecidable problem. In this paper, we investigate the synthesis problem for specifications that admit dominant strategies, i.e., strategies that perform at least as well as the best alternative strategy, although they do not necessarily win the game. We show that for such specifications, distributed systems can be synthesized compositionally, considering one process at a time. The compositional approach has dramatically better complexity and is uniformly applicable to all system architectures

Weight monitoring with linear temporal logic: complexity and decidability

Abstract: Many important performance and reliability measures can be formalized as the accumulated values of weight functions. In this paper, we introduce an extension of linear time logic including past (LTL) with new operators that impose constraints on the accumulated weight along path fragments. The fragments are characterized by regular conditions formalized by deterministic finite automata (monitor DFA). This new logic covers properties expressible by several recently proposed formalisms. We study the model-checking problem for weighted transition systems, Markov chains and Markov decision processes with rational weights. While the general problem is undecidable, we provide algorithms and sharp complexity bounds for several sublogics that arise by restricting the monitoring DFA.

Probabilistic Opacity for Markov Decision Processes

Abstract: Opacity is a generic security property, that has been defined on (non probabilistic) transition systems and later on Markov chains with labels. For a secret predicate, given as a subset of runs, and a function describing the view of an external observer, the value of interest for opacity is a measure of the set of runs disclosing the secret. We extend this definition to the richer framework of Markov decision processes, where non deterministic choice is combined with probabilistic transitions, and we study related decidability problems with partial or complete observation hypotheses for the schedulers. We prove that all questions are decidable with complete observation and $\omega$-regular secrets. With partial observation, we prove that all quantitative questions are undecidable but the question whether a system is almost surely non opaque becomes decidable for a restricted class of $\omega$-regular secrets, as well as for all $\omega$-regular secrets under finite-memory schedulers.

Extendability of Continuous Maps Is Undecidable

Abstract: We consider two basic problems of algebraic topology: the extension problem and the computation of higher homotopy groups, from the point of view of computability and computational complexity The extension problem is the following: Given topological spaces X and Y, a subspace AaS dagger X, and a (continuous) map f:A -> Y, decide whether f can be extended to a continuous map All spaces are given as finite simplicial complexes, and the map f is simplicial Recent positive algorithmic results, proved in a series of companion papers, show that for (k-1)-connected Y, ka parts per thousand yen2, the extension problem is algorithmically solvable if the dimension of X is at most 2k-1, and even in polynomial time when k is fixed Here we show that the condition cannot be relaxed: for , the extension problem with (k-1)-connected Y becomes undecidable Moreover, either the target space Y or the pair (X,A) can be fixed in such a way that the problem remains undecidable Our second result, a strengthening of a result of Anick, says that the computation of pi (k) (Y) of a 1-connected simplicial complex Y is #P-hard when k is considered as a part of the input

The Inhabitation Problem for Non-idempotent Intersection Types

Abstract: The inhabitation problem for intersection types is known to be undecidable. We study the problem in the case of non-idempotent intersection, and we prove decidability through a sound and complete algorithm. We then consider the inhabitation problem for an extended system typing the λ-calculus with pairs, and we prove the decidability in this case too. The extended system is interesting in its own, since it allows to characterize solvable terms in the λ-calculus with pairs.

Active Diagnosis for Probabilistic Systems

Abstract: The diagnosis problem amounts to deciding whether some specific “fault” event occurred or not in a system, given the observations collected on a run of this system. This system is then diagnosable if the fault can always be detected, and the active diagnosis problem consists in controlling the system in order to ensure its diagnosability. We consider here a stochastic framework for this problem: once a control is selected, the system becomes a stochastic process. In this setting, the active diagnosis problem consists in deciding whether there exists some observation-based strategy that makes the system diagnosable with probability one. We prove that this problem is EXPTIME-complete, and that the active diagnosis strategies are belief-based. The safe active diagnosis problem is similar, but aims at enforcing diagnosability while preserving a positive probability to non faulty runs, i.e. without enforcing the occurrence of a fault. We prove that this problem requires non belief-based strategies, and that it is undecidable. However, it belongs to NEXPTIME when restricted to belief-based strategies. Our work also refines the decidability/undecidability frontier for verification problems on partially observed Markov decision processes.

On the satisfiability problem for SPARQL patterns

Abstract: The satisfiability problem for SPARQL patterns is undecidable in general, since the expressive power of SPARQL 1.0 is comparable with that of the relational algebra. The goal of this paper is to delineate the boundary of decidability of satisfiability in terms of the constraints allowed in filter conditions. The classes of constraints considered are bound-constraints, negated bound-constraints, equalities, nonequalities, constant-equalities, and constant-nonequalities. The main result of the paper can be summarized by saying that, as soon as inconsistent filter conditions can be formed, satisfiability is undecidable. The key insight in each case is to find a way to emulate the set difference operation. Undecidability can then be obtained from a known undecidability result for the algebra of binary relations with union, composition, and set difference. When no inconsistent filter conditions can be formed, satisfiability is efficiently decidable by simple checks on bound variables and on the use of literals. The paper also points out that satisfiability for the so-called `well-designed' patterns can be decided by a check on bound variables and a check for inconsistent filter conditions.

Really Natural Linear Indexed Type Checking

Abstract: Recent works have shown the power of linear indexed type systems for enforcing complex program properties. These systems combine linear types with a language of type-level indices, allowing more fine-grained analyses. Such systems have been fruitfully applied in diverse domains, including implicit complexity and differential privacy.A natural way to enhance the expressiveness of this approach is by allowing the indices to depend on runtime information, in the spirit of dependent types. This approach is used in DFuzz, a language for differential privacy. The DFuzz type system relies on an index language supporting real and natural number arithmetic over constants and variables. Moreover, DFuzz uses a subtyping mechanism to make types more flexible. By themselves, linearity, dependency, and subtyping each require delicate handling when performing type checking or type inference; their combination increases this challenge substantially, as the features can interact in non-trivial ways.In this paper, we study the type-checking problem for DFuzz. We show how we can reduce type checking for (a simple extension of) DFuzz to constraint solving over a first-order theory of naturals and real numbers which, although undecidable, can often be handled in practice by standard numeric solvers.

Containment of Data Graph Queries

Abstract: The graph database model is currently one of the most popular paradigms for storing data, used in applications such as social networks, biological databases and the Semantic Web. Despite the popularity of this model, the development of graph database management systems is still in its infancy, and there are several fundamental issues regarding graph databases that are not fully understood. Indeed, while graph query languages that concentrate on topological properties are now well developed, not much is known about languages that can query both the topology of graphs and their underlying data. Our goal is to conduct a detailed study of static analysis problems for such languages. In this paper we consider the containment problem for several recently proposed classes of queries that manipulate both topology and data: regular queries with memory, regular queries with data tests, and graph XPath. Our results show that the problem is in general undecidable for all of these classes. However, by allowing only positive data comparisons we nd natural fragments that enjoy much better static analysis properties: the containment problem is decidable, and its computational complexity ranges from PSPACE-complete to EXPSPACEcomplete. We also propose extensions of regular queries with an inverse operator, and study query evaluation and query containment for them.

Lightweight description logics and branching time: a troublesome marriage

Abstract: We study branching-time temporal description logics (BTDLs) based on the temporal logic CTL in the presence of rigid (time-invariant) roles and general TBoxes. There is evidence that, if full CTL is combined with the classical ALC in this way, reasoning becomes undecidable. In this paper, we begin by substantiating this claim, establishing undecidability for a fragment of this combination. In view of this negative result, we then investigate BTDLs that emerge from combining fragments of CTL with lightweight DLs from the EL and DL-Lite families. We show that even rather inexpressive BTDLs based on EL exhibit very high complexity. Most notably, we identify two convex fragments which are undecidable and hard for non-elementary time, respectively. For BTDLs based on DL-LiteNbool, we obtain tight complexity bounds that range from PSPACE to EXPTIME.

The complexity of partial-observation stochastic parity games with finite-memory strategies

Abstract: We consider two-player partial-observation stochastic games on finitestate graphs where player 1 has partial observation and player 2 has perfect observation. The winning condition we study are e-regular conditions specified as parity objectives. The qualitative-analysis problem given a partial-observation stochastic game and a parity objective asks whether there is a strategy to ensure that the objective is satisfied with probability 1 (resp. positive probability). These qualitative-analysis problems are known to be undecidable. However in many applications the relevant question is the existence of finite-memory strategies, and the qualitative-analysis problems under finite-memory strategies was recently shown to be decidable in 2EXPTIME.We improve the complexity and show that the qualitative-analysis problems for partial-observation stochastic parity games under finite-memory strategies are EXPTIME-complete; and also establish optimal (exponential) memory bounds for finite-memory strategies required for qualitative analysis.

Ordered Navigation on Multi-attributed Data Words

Abstract: We study temporal logics and automata on multi-attributed data words. Recently, BD-LTL was introduced as a temporal logic on data words extending LTL by navigation along positions of single data values. As allowing for navigation wrt. tuples of data values renders the logic undecidable, we introduce ND-LTL, an extension of BD-LTL by a restricted form of tuple-navigation. While complete ND-LTL is still undecidable, the two natural fragments allowing for either future or past navigation along data values are shown to be Ackermann-hard, yet decidability is obtained by reduction to nested multi-counter systems. To this end, we introduce and study nested variants of data automata as an intermediate model simplifying the constructions. To complement these results we show that imposing the same restrictions on BD-LTL yields two 2ExpSpace-complete fragments while satisfiability for the full logic is known to be as hard as reachability in Petri nets.

Ordered Navigation on Multi-attributed Data Words

Abstract: We study temporal logics and automata on multi-attributed data words. Recently, BD-LTL was introduced as a temporal logic on data words extending LTL by navigation along positions of single data values. As allowing for navigation wrt. tuples of data values renders the logic undecidable, we introduce ND-LTL, an extension of BD-LTL by a restricted form of tuple-navigation. While complete ND-LTL is still undecidable, the two natural fragments allowing for either future or past navigation along data values are shown to be Ackermann-hard, yet decidability is obtained by reduction to nested multi-counter systems. To this end, we introduce and study nested variants of data automata as an intermediate model simplifying the constructions. To complement these results we show that imposing the same restrictions on BD-LTL yields two 2ExpSpace-complete fragments while satisfiability for the full logic is known to be as hard as reachability in Petri nets.

The Complexity of Partial-observation Stochastic Parity Games With Finite-memory Strategies

Abstract: We consider two-player partial-observation stochastic games on finite-state graphs where player 1 has partial observation and player 2 has perfect observation. The winning condition we study are \omega-regular conditions specified as parity objectives. The qualitative-analysis problem given a partial-observation stochastic game and a parity objective asks whether there is a strategy to ensure that the objective is satisfied with probability~1 (resp. positive probability). These qualtitative-analysis problems are known to be undecidable. However in many applications the relevant question is the existence of finite-memory strategies, and the qualitative-analysis problems under finite-memory strategies was recently shown to be decidable in 2EXPTIME. We improve the complexity and show that the qualitative-analysis problems for partial-observation stochastic parity games under finite-memory strategies are EXPTIME-complete; and also establish optimal (exponential) memory bounds for finite-memory strategies required for qualitative analysis.