Building on a result of Larose and Tesson for constraint satisfaction problems (CSP s), we uncover a dichotomy for the quantified constraint satisfaction problem QCSP(B), where B is a finite structure that is a core. Specifically, such problems are either in ALogtime or are L-hard. This involves demonstrating that if CSP(B) is first-order expressible, and B is a core, then QCSP(B) is in ALogtime.
We show that the class of B such that CSP(B) is first-order expressible (indeed, trivially true) is a microcosm for all QCSPs. Specifically, for any B there exists a C such that CSP(C) is trivially true, yet QCSP(B) and QCSP(C) are equivalent under logspace reductions.
In 1978, Schaefer proved his famous dichotomy theorem for generalized satisfiability problems. He defined an infinite number of propositional satisfiability problems, showed that all these problems are either in P or NP-complete, and gave a simple criterion to determine which of the two cases holds. This result is surprising in light of Ladner's theorem, which implies that there are an infinite number of complexity classes between P and NP-complete (under the assumption that P is not equal to NP). Schaefer also stated a dichotomy theorem for quantified generalized Boolean formulas, but this th…
The quantified constraint satisfaction problem (QCSP) is a powerful framework for modelling computational problems. The general intractability of the QCSP has motivated the pursuit of restricted cases that avoid its maximal complexity. In this paper, we introduce and study a new model for investigating QCSP complexity in which the types of constraints given by the existentially quantified variables, is restricted. Our primary technical contribution is the development and application of a general technology for proving positive results on parameterizations of the model, of inclusion in the comp…
The algebraic dichotomy conjecture for Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) of reducts of (infinite) finitely bounded homogeneous structures states that such CSPs are polynomial-time tractable when the model-complete core of the template has a pseudo-Siggers polymorphism, and NP-complete otherwise. One of the important questions related to this conjecture is whether, similarly to the case of finite structures, the condition of having a pseudo-Siggers polymorphism can be replaced by the condition of having polymorphisms satisfying a fixed set of identities of height 1, i.e., identities which…
The quantified constraint satisfaction problem (QCSP) is the problem of deciding, given a structure and a first-order prenex sentence whose quantifier-free part is the conjunction of atoms, whether or not the sentence holds on the structure. One obtains a family of problems by defining, for each structure B, the problem QCSP(B) to be the QCSP where the structure is fixed to be B. In this article, we offer a viewpoint on the research program of understanding the complexity of the problems QCSP(B) on finite structures. In particular, we propose and discuss a group of conjectures; throughout, we …
One of the central problems in the study of parametrized constraint satisfaction problems is the Dichotomy Conjecture by T. Feder and M. Vardi stating that the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) over a fixed, finite constraint language is either solvable in polynomial time or \textsc{NP}-complete. The conjecture was verified in certain special cases (domains with a relatively small number of elements, constraint languages containing all unary relations, etc.) In this article, we present a proof of the Dichotomy Conjecture via local consistency and AF- consistency checks. In fact, we show th…
The constraint satisfaction probem (CSP) is a well-acknowledged framework in which many combinatorial search problems can be naturally formulated. The CSP may be viewed as the problem of deciding the truth of a logical sentence consisting of a conjunction of constraints, in front of which all variables are existentially quantified. The quantified constraint satisfaction problem (QCSP) is the generalization of the CSP where universal quantification is permitted in addition to existential quantification. The general intractability of these problems has motivated research studying the complexity …
Bulatov (2008) gave a dichotomy for the counting constraint satisfaction problem #CSP. A problem from #CSP is characterised by a constraint language, which is a fixed, finite set of relations over a finite domain D. An instance of the problem uses these relations to constrain the variables in a larger set. Bulatov showed that the problem of counting the satisfying assignments of instances of any problem from #CSP is either in polynomial time (FP) or is #P-complete. His proof draws heavily on techniques from universal algebra and cannot be understood without a secure grasp of that field. We giv…
We prove that an $ω$-categorical core structure primitively positively interprets all finite structures with parameters if and only if some stabilizer of its polymorphism clone has a homomorphism to the clone of projections, and that this happens if and only if its polymorphism clone does not contain operations $α$, $β$, $s$ satisfying the identity $αs(x,y,x,z,y,z) \approx βs(y,x,z,x,z,y)$. This establishes an algebraic criterion equivalent to the conjectured borderline between P and NP-complete CSPs over reducts of finitely bounded homogenous structures, and accomplishes one of the steps of a…
A Complexity Dichotomy for Temporal Valued Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Institute of Algebra, TU Dresden（德累斯顿工业大学代数研究所）；Univ Lyon, CNRS, ENS de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, LIP UMR5668（里昂大学、法国国家科学研究中心、巴黎高等师范学院里昂分校、里昂第一大学LIP实验室）；Institute of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry, TU Wien（维也纳工业大学离散数学与几何研究所）
In this paper we determine the complexity of a broad class of problems that extends the temporal constraint satisfaction problems. To be more precise we study the problems Poset-SAT($Φ$), where $Φ$ is a given set of quantifier-free $\leq$-formulas. An instance of Poset-SAT($Φ$) consists of finitely many variables $x_1,\ldots,x_n$ and formulas $ϕ_i(x_{i_1},\ldots,x_{i_k})$ with $ϕ_i \in Φ$; the question is whether this input is satisfied by any partial order on $x_1,\ldots,x_n$ or not. We show that every such problem is NP-complete or can be solved in polynomial time, depending on $Φ$. All Pose…
Many natural combinatorial problems can be expressed as constraint satisfaction problems. This class of problems is known to be NP-complete in general, but certain restrictions on the form of the constraints can ensure tractability. The standard way to parameterize interesting subclasses of the constraint satisfaction problem is via finite constraint languages. The main problem is to classify those subclasses that are solvable in polynomial time and those that are NP-complete. It was conjectured that if a constraint language has a weak near unanimity polymorphism then the corresponding constra…
Universidad del País Vasco（巴斯克大学）；IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science（伊克巴斯克巴斯克科学基金会）
We consider the quantified constraint satisfaction problem (QCSP) which is to decide, given a structure and a first-order sentence (not assumed here to be in prenex form) built from conjunction and quantification, whether or not the sentence is true on the structure. We present a proof system for certifying the falsity of QCSP instances and develop its basic theory; for instance, we provide an algorithmic interpretation of its behavior. Our proof system places the established Q-resolution proof system in a broader context, and also allows us to derive QCSP tractability results.
We prove an algebraic preservation theorem for positive Horn definability in aleph-zero categorical structures. In particular, we define and study a construction which we call the periodic power of a structure, and define a periomorphism of a structure to be a homomorphism from the periodic power of the structure to the structure itself. Our preservation theorem states that, over an aleph-zero categorical structure, a relation is positive Horn definable if and only if it is preserved by all periomorphisms of the structure. We give applications of this theorem, including a new proof of the know…
CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；University of Toulouse（图卢兹大学）；INP Toulouse（图卢兹国立理工学院）
Given a fixed constraint language $Γ$, the conservative CSP over $Γ$ (denoted by c-CSP($Γ$)) is a variant of CSP($Γ$) where the domain of each variable can be restricted arbitrarily. A dichotomy is known for conservative CSP: for every fixed language $Γ$, c-CSP($Γ$) is either in P or NP-complete. However, the characterization of conservatively tractable languages is of algebraic nature and the naive recognition algorithm is super-exponential in the domain size. The main contribution of this paper is a polynomial-time algorithm that, given a constraint language $Γ$ as input, decides if c-CSP($Γ…
A classic result due to Schaefer (1978) classifies all constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) over the Boolean domain as being either in $\mathsf{P}$ or $\mathsf{NP}$-hard. This paper considers a promise-problem variant of CSPs called PCSPs. A PCSP over a finite set of pairs of constraints $Γ$ consists of a pair $(Ψ_P, Ψ_Q)$ of CSPs with the same set of variables such that for every $(P, Q) \in Γ$, $P(x_{i_1}, ..., x_{i_k})$ is a clause of $Ψ_P$ if and only if $Q(x_{i_1}, ..., x_{i_k})$ is a clause of $Ψ_Q$. The promise problem $\operatorname{PCSP}(Γ)$ is to distinguish, given $(Ψ_P, Ψ_Q)$, b…
The study of the complexity of the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP), centred around the Feder-Vardi Dichotomy Conjecture, has been very prominent in the last two decades. After a long concerted effort and many partial results, the Dichotomy Conjecture has been proved in 2017 independently by Bulatov and Zhuk. At about the same time, a vast generalisation of CSP, called promise CSP, has started to gain prominence. In this survey, we explain the importance of promise CSP and highlight many new very interesting features that the study of promise CSP has brought to light. The complexity class…
Conservative constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) constitute an important particular case of the general CSP, in which the allowed values of each variable can be restricted in an arbitrary way. Problems of this type are well studied for graph homomorphisms. A dichotomy theorem characterizing conservative CSPs solvable in polynomial time and proving that the remaining ones are NP-complete was proved by Bulatov in 2003. Its proof, however, is quite long and technical. A shorter proof of this result based on the absorbing subuniverses technique was suggested by Barto in 2011. In this paper we …
In a non-uniform Constraint Satisfaction problem CSP(G), where G is a set of relations on a finite set A, the goal is to find an assignment of values to variables subject to constraints imposed on specified sets of variables using the relations from G. The Dichotomy Conjecture for the non-uniform CSP states that for every constraint language G the problem CSP(G) is either solvable in polynomial time or is NP-complete. It was proposed by Feder and Vardi in their seminal 1993 paper. In this paper we confirm the Dichotomy Conjecture.
We study techniques for deciding the computational complexity of infinite-domain constraint satisfaction problems. For certain fundamental algebraic structures Delta, we prove definability dichotomy theorems of the following form: for every first-order expansion Gamma of Delta, either Gamma has a quantifier-free Horn definition in Delta, or there is an element d of Gamma such that all non-empty relations in Gamma contain a tuple of the form (d,...,d), or all relations with a first-order definition in Delta have a primitive positive definition in Gamma. The results imply that several families o…
Maximum surjective constraint satisfaction problems (Max-Sur-CSPs) are computational problems where we are given a set of variables denoting values from a finite domain B and a set of constraints on the variables. A solution to such a problem is a surjective mapping from the set of variables to B such that the number of satisfied constraints is maximized. We study the approximation performance that can be acccchieved by algorithms for these problems, mainly by investigating their relation with Max-CSPs (which are the corresponding problems without the surjectivity requirement). Our work gives …
A Boolean constraint satisfaction instance is a conjunction of constraint applications, where the allowed constraints are drawn from a fixed set B of Boolean functions. We consider the problem of determining whether two given constraint satisfaction instances are equivalent and prove a Dichotomy Theorem by showing that for all sets C of allowed constraints, this problem is either polynomial-time solvable or coNP-complete, and we give a simple criterion to determine which case holds. A more general problem addressed in this paper is the isomorphism problem, the problem of determining whether th…
For Boolean satisfiability problems, the structure of the solution space is characterized by the solution graph, where the vertices are the solutions, and two solutions are connected iff they differ in exactly one variable. For this implicitly defined graph, we here study the st-connectivity and connectivity problems. Building on the work of Gopalan et al. ("The Connectivity of Boolean Satisfiability: Computational and Structural Dichotomies", 2006/2009), we first investigate satisfiability problems given by CSPs, more exactly CNF(S)-formulas with constants (as considered in Schaefer's famous …
We study constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) in the presence of counting quantifiers $\exists^{\geq j}$, asserting the existence of $j$ distinct witnesses for the variable in question. As a continuation of our previous (CSR 2012) paper, we focus on the complexity of undirected graph templates. As our main contribution, we settle the two principal open questions proposed in (CSR 2012). Firstly, we complete the classification of clique templates by proving a full trichotomy for all possible combinations of counting quantifiers and clique sizes, placing each case either in P, NP-complete or P…
For $n\geq 3$, let $(H_n, E)$ denote the $n$-th Henson graph, i.e., the unique countable homogeneous graph with exactly those finite graphs as induced subgraphs that do not embed the complete graph on $n$ vertices. We show that for all structures $Γ$ with domain $H_n$ whose relations are first-order definable in $(H_n,E)$ the constraint satisfaction problem for $Γ$ is either in P or is NP-complete. We moreover show a similar complexity dichotomy for all structures whose relations are first-order definable in a homogeneous graph whose reflexive closure is an equivalence relation. Together with …
We prove a complexity dichotomy theorem for all non-negative weighted counting Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSP). This caps a long series of important results on counting problems including unweighted and weighted graph homomorphisms and the celebrated dichotomy theorem for unweighted #CSP. Our dichotomy theorem gives a succinct criterion for tractability. If a set F of constraint functions satisfies the criterion, then the counting CSP problem defined by F is solvable in polynomial time; if it does not satisfy the criterion, then the problem is #P-hard. We furthermore show that the quest…
Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSP) constitute a convenient way to capture many combinatorial problems. The general CSP is known to be NP-complete, but its complexity depends on a template, usually a set of relations, upon which they are constructed. Following this template, there exist tractable and intractable instances of CSPs. It has been proved that for each CSP problem over a given set of relations there exists a corresponding CSP problem over graphs of unary functions belonging to the same complexity class. In this short note we show a dichotomy theorem for every finite domain D of C…
It is well known that the constraint satisfaction problem over general relational structures can be reduced in polynomial time to digraphs. We present a simple variant of such a reduction and use it to show that the algebraic dichotomy conjecture is equivalent to its restriction to digraphs and that the polynomial reduction can be made in logspace. We also show that our reduction preserves the bounded width property, i.e., solvability by local consistency methods. We discuss further algorithmic properties that are preserved and related open problems.
The Dichotomy Conjecture for constraint satisfaction problems has been verified for conservative problems (or, equivalently, for list homomorphism problems) by Andrei Bulatov. An earlier case of this dichotomy, for list homomorphisms to undirected graphs, came with an elegant structural distinction between the tractable and intractable cases. Such structural characterization is absent in Bulatov's classification, and Bulatov asked whether one can be found. We provide an answer in the case of digraphs; the technique will apply in a broader context. The key concept we introduce is that of a digr…
Although the CSP (constraint satisfaction problem) is NP-complete, even in the case when all constraints are binary, certain classes of instances are tractable. We study classes of instances defined by excluding subproblems. This approach has recently led to the discovery of novel tractable classes. The complete characterisation of all tractable classes defined by forbidding patterns (where a pattern is simply a compact representation of a set of subproblems) is a challenging problem. We demonstrate a dichotomy in the case of forbidden patterns consisting of either one or two constraints. This…
Holant problems are a general framework to study the algorithmic complexity of counting problems. Both counting constraint satisfaction problems and graph homomorphisms are special cases. All previous results of Holant problems are over the Boolean domain. In this paper, we give the first dichotomy theorem for Holant problems for domain size $>2$. We discover unexpected tractable families of counting problems, by giving new polynomial time algorithms. This paper also initiates holographic reductions in domains of size $>2$. This is our main algorithmic technique, and is used for both tractable…
Robin Hirsch posed in 1996 the 'Really Big Complexity Problem': classify the computational complexity of the network satisfaction problem for all finite relation algebras A. We provide a complete classification for the case that A is symmetric and has a flexible atom; in this case, the problem is NP-complete or in P. The classification task can be reduced to the case where A is integral. If a finite integral relation algebra has a flexible atom, then it has a normal representation B. We can then study the computational complexity of the network satisfaction problem of A using the universal-alg…
We study the (non-uniform) quantified constraint satisfaction problem QCSP(H) as H ranges over partially reflexive forests. We obtain a complexity-theoretic dichotomy: QCSP(H) is either in NL or is NP-hard. The separating condition is related firstly to connectivity, and thereafter to accessibility from all vertices of H to connected reflexive subgraphs. In the case of partially reflexive paths, we give a refinement of our dichotomy: QCSP(H) is either in NL or is Pspace-complete.
Constraint satisfaction problems (or CSPs) have been extensively studied in, for instance, artificial intelligence, database theory, graph theory, and statistical physics. From a practical viewpoint, it is beneficial to approximately solve those CSPs. When one tries to approximate the total number of truth assignments that satisfy all Boolean-valued constraints for (unweighted) Boolean CSPs, there is a known trichotomy theorem by which all such counting problems are neatly classified into exactly three categories under polynomial-time (randomized) approximation-preserving reductions. In contra…
We define and explore a notion of unique prime factorization for constraint functions, and use this as a new tool to prove a complexity classification for counting weighted Eulerian orientation problems with arrow reversal symmetry (ARS). We prove that all such problems are either polynomial-time computable or #P-hard. We show that the class of weighted Eulerian orientation problems subsumes all weighted counting constraint satisfaction problems (#CSP) on Boolean variables. More significantly, we establish a novel connection between #CSP and counting weighted Eulerian orientation problems that…
We study the complexity of valued constraint satisfaction problems (VCSP). A problem from VCSP is characterised by a \emph{constraint language}, a fixed set of cost functions over a finite domain. An instance of the problem is specified by a sum of cost functions from the language and the goal is to minimise the sum. We consider the case of so-called \emph{conservative} languages; that is, languages containing all unary cost functions, thus allowing arbitrary restrictions on the domains of the variables. We prove a Schaefer-like dichotomy theorem for this case: if all cost functions in the lan…
The paper presents an algebraic framework for optimization problems expressible as Valued Constraint Satisfaction Problems. Our results generalize the algebraic framework for the decision version (CSPs) provided by Bulatov et al. [SICOMP 2005]. We introduce the notions of weighted algebras and varieties and use the Galois connection due to Cohen et al. [SICOMP 2013] to link VCSP languages to weighted algebras. We show that the difficulty of VCSP depends only on the weighted variety generated by the associated weighted algebra. Paralleling the results for CSPs we exhibit a reduction to cores an…
We consider the complexity of counting homomorphisms from an $r$-uniform hypergraph $G$ to a symmetric $r$-ary relation $H$. We give a dichotomy theorem for $r>2$, showing for which $H$ this problem is in FP and for which $H$ it is #P-complete. This generalises a theorem of Dyer and Greenhill (2000) for the case $r=2$, which corresponds to counting graph homomorphisms. Our dichotomy theorem extends to the case in which the relation $H$ is weighted, and the goal is to compute the \emph{partition function}, which is the sum of weights of the homomorphisms. This problem is motivated by statistica…
We produce a class of $ω$-categorical structures with finite signature by applying a model-theoretic construction -- a refinement of the Hrushosvki-encoding -- to $ω$-categorical structures in a possibly infinite signature. We show that the encoded structures retain desirable algebraic properties of the original structures, but that the constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) associated with these structures can be badly behaved in terms of computational complexity. This method allows us to systematically generate $ω$-categorical templates whose CSPs are complete for a variety of complexity cl…
For Boolean satisfiability problems, the structure of the solution space is characterized by the solution graph, where the vertices are the solutions, and two solutions are connected iff they differ in exactly one variable. Motivated by research on heuristics and the satisfiability threshold, Gopalan et al. in 2006 studied connectivity properties of the solution graph and related complexity issues for constraint satisfaction problems in Schaefer's framework. They found dichotomies for the diameter of connected components and for the complexity of the st-connectivity question, and conjectured a…
In the constraint satisfaction problem ($CSP$), the aim is to find an assignment of values to a set of variables subject to specified constraints. In the minimum cost homomorphism problem ($MinHom$), one is additionally given weights $c_{va}$ for every variable $v$ and value $a$, and the aim is to find an assignment $f$ to the variables that minimizes $\sum_{v} c_{vf(v)}$. Let $MinHom(Γ)$ denote the $MinHom$ problem parameterized by the set of predicates allowed for constraints. $MinHom(Γ)$ is related to many well-studied combinatorial optimization problems, and concrete applications can be fo…
Finite-domain constraint satisfaction problems are either solvable by Datalog, or not even expressible in fixed-point logic with counting. The border between the two regimes coincides with an important dichotomy in universal algebra; in particular, the border can be described by a strong height-one Maltsev condition. For infinite-domain CSPs, the situation is more complicated even if the template structure of the CSP is model-theoretically tame. We prove that there is no Maltsev condition that characterizes Datalog already for the CSPs of first-order reducts of (Q;<); such CSPs are called temp…
We study the (non-uniform) quantified constraint satisfaction problem QCSP(H) as H ranges over partially reflexive cycles. We obtain a complexity-theoretic dichotomy: QCSP(H) is either in NL or is NP-hard. The separating conditions are somewhat esoteric hence the epithet "wavy line of tractability".
Let A be an idempotent algebra on a finite domain. We combine results of Chen, Zhuk and Carvalho et al. to argue that if A satisfies the polynomially generated powers property (PGP), then QCSP(Inv(A)) is in NP. We then use the result of Zhuk to prove a converse, that if QCSP(Inv(A)) satisfies the exponentially generated powers property (EGP), then QCSP(Inv(A)) is co-NP-hard. Since Zhuk proved that only PGP and EGP are possible, we derive a full dichotomy for the QCSP, justifying the moral correctness of what we term the Chen Conjecture. We examine in closer detail the situation for domains of …
The Dichotomy Conjecture for constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) states that every CSP is in P or is NP-complete (Feder-Vardi, 1993). It has been verified for conservative problems (also known as list homomorphism problems) by A. Bulatov (2003). We augment this result by showing that for digraph templates H, every conservative CSP, denoted LHOM(H), is solvable in logspace or is hard for NL. More precisely, we introduce a digraph structure we call a circular N, and prove the following dichotomy: if H contains no circular N then LHOM(H) admits a logspace algorithm, and otherwise LHOM(H) is h…
Generalised Satisfiability Problems (or Boolean Constraint Satisfaction Problems), introduced by Schaefer in 1978, are a general class of problem which allow the systematic study of the complexity of satisfiability problems with different types of constraints. In 1979, Valiant introduced the complexity class parity P, the problem of counting the number of solutions to NP problems modulo two. Others have since considered the question of counting modulo other integers. We give a dichotomy theorem for the complexity of counting the number of solutions to Generalised Satisfiability Problems modulo…
It is well known that the constraint satisfaction problem over a general relational structure A is polynomial time equivalent to the constraint problem over some associated digraph. We present a variant of this construction and show that the corresponding constraint satisfaction problem is logspace equivalent to that over A. Moreover, we show that almost all of the commonly encountered polymorphism properties are held equivalently on the A and the constructed digraph. As a consequence, the Algebraic CSP dichotomy conjecture as well as the conjectures characterizing CSPs solvable in logspace an…
A finite constraint language $\mathscr{R}$ is a finite set of relations over some finite domain $A$. We show that intractability of the constraint satisfaction problem $\operatorname{CSP}(\mathscr{R})$ can, in all known cases, be replaced by an infinite hierarchy of intractable promise problems of increasingly disparate promise conditions: where instances are guaranteed to either have no solutions at all, or to be $k$-robustly satisfiable (for any fixed $k$), meaning that every "reasonable" partial instantiation on~$k$ variables extends to a solution. For example, subject to the assumption $\t…
We give a complexity dichotomy theorem for the counting Constraint Satisfaction Problem (#CSP in short) with complex weights. To this end, we give three conditions for its tractability. Let F be any finite set of complex-valued functions, then we prove that #CSP(F) is solvable in polynomial time if all three conditions are satisfied; and is #P-hard otherwise. Our complexity dichotomy generalizes a long series of important results on counting problems: (a) the problem of counting graph homomorphisms is the special case when there is a single symmetric binary function in F; (b) the problem of co…
We systematically study the computational complexity of a broad class of computational problems in phylogenetic reconstruction. The class contains for example the rooted triple consistency problem, forbidden subtree problems, the quartet consistency problem, and many other problems studied in the bioinformatics literature. The studied problems can be described as \emph{constraint satisfaction problems} where the constraints have a first-order definition over the rooted triple relation. We show that every such phylogeny problem can be solved in polynomial time or is NP-complete. On the algorith…
