Undecidable problem

About: Undecidable problem is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3135 publications have been published within this topic receiving 71238 citations.

Preemptive Job-Shop Scheduling Using Stopwatch Automata

Abstract: In this paper we show how the problem of job-shop scheduling where the jobs are preemptible can be modeled naturally as a shortest path problem defined on an extension of timed automata, namely stopwatch automata where some of the clocks might be freezed at certain states. Although general verification problems on stopwatch automata are known to be undecidable, we show that due to particular properties of optimal schedules, the shortest path in the automaton belongs to a finite subset of the set of acyclic paths and hence the problem is solvable. We present several algorithms and heuristics for finding the shortest paths in such automata and test their implementation on numerous benchmark examples.

Flatness Is Not a Weakness

Abstract: We propose an extension, called Lp+, of the temporal logic LTL, which enables talking about finitely many register values: the models are infinite words over tuples of integers (resp. real numbers). The formulas of Lp+ are flat: on the left of an until, only atomic formulas or LTL formulas are allowed. We prove, in the spirit of the correspondence between automata and temporal logics, that the models of a Lp+ formula are recognized by a piecewise flat counter machine; for each state q, at most one loop of the machine on q may modify the register values. Emptiness of (piecewise) flat counter machines is decidable (this follows from a result in [9]). It follows that satisfiability and model-checking the negation of a formula are decidable for Lp+. On the other hand, we show that inclusion is undecidable for such languages. This shows that validity and model-checking positive formulas are undecidable.

Undecidability in epistemic planning

Abstract: Dynamic epistemic logic (DEL) provides a very expressive framework for multi-agent planning that can deal with nondeterminism, partial observability, sensing actions, and arbitrary nesting of beliefs about other agents' beliefs. However, as we show in this paper, this expressiveness comes at a price. The planning framework is undecidable, even if we allow only purely epistemic actions (actions that change only beliefs, not ontic facts). Undecidability holds already in the S5 setting with at least 2 agents, and even with 1 agent in S4. It shows that multi-agent planning is robustly undecidable if we assume that agents can reason with an arbitrary nesting of beliefs about beliefs. We also prove a corollary showing undecidability of the DEL model checking problem with the star operator on actions (iteration).

The undecidability of the semi-unification problem

Abstract: The Semi-Unification Problem (SUP) is a natural generalization of both first-order unification and matching. The problem arises in various branches of computer science and logic. Although several special cases of SUP are known to be decidable, the problem in general has been open for several years. We show that SUP in general is undecidable, by reducing what we call the "boundedness problem" of Turing machines to SUP. The undecidability of this boundedness problem is established by a technique developed in the mid-1960s to prove related results about Turing machines

Undecidable equivalences for basic process algebra

Abstract: A recent theorem shows that strong bisimilarity is decidable for the class of normed BPA processes, which correspond to a class of context-free grammars generating the ϵ-free context-free languages. Huynh and Tian (Technical Report UTDCS-31-90, University of Texas at Dallas, 1990) have shown that readiness and failure equivalence are undecidable for BPA processes. In this paper we examine all other equivalences in the linear/branching time hierarchy and show that none of them are decidable for normed BPA processes.