Descriptive complexity theory

Descriptive complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory and of finite model theory that characterizes complexity classes by the type of logic needed to express the languages in them. For example, PH, the union of all complexity classes in the polynomial hierarchy, is precisely the class of languages expressible by statements of second-order logic. This connection between complexity and the logic of finite structures allows results to be transferred easily from one area to the other, facilitating new proof methods and providing additional evidence that the main complexity classes are somehow "natural" and not tied to the specific abstract machines used to define them.

Specifically, each logical system produces a set of queries expressible in it. The queries – when restricted to finite structures – correspond to the computational problems of traditional complexity theory.

The first main result of descriptive complexity was Fagin's theorem, shown by Ronald Fagin in 1974. It established that NP is precisely the set of languages expressible by sentences of existential second-order logic; that is, second order logic excluding universal quantification over relations, functions, and subsets. Many other classes were later characterized in such a manner, most of them by Neil Immerman:

See also

References

  1. Lauri Hella and José María Turull-Torres (2006), "Computing queries with higher-order logics", Theoretical Computer Science ((what is called "number" in bibtex) ed.), Essex, UK: Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd., 355 (2): 197–214, doi:10.1016/j.tcs.2006.01.009, ISSN 0304-3975

Further reading

  • Shawn Hedman, A first course in logic: an introduction to model theory, proof theory, computability, and complexity, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-852981-3, section 10.3 is a suitable introduction for undergraduates
  • Grädel, Erich; Kolaitis, Phokion G.; Libkin, Leonid; Maarten, Marx; Spencer, Joel; Vardi, Moshe Y.; Venema, Yde; Weinstein, Scott (2007). Finite model theory and its applications. Texts in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-00428-8. Zbl 1133.03001.
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