The tractability conjecture for finite domain Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) stated that such CSPs are solvable in polynomial time whenever there is no natural reduction, in some precise technical sense, from the 3-SAT problem; otherwise, they are NP-complete. Its recent resolution draws on an algebraic characterization of the conjectured borderline: the CSP of a finite structure permits no natural reduction from 3-SAT if and only if the stabilizer of the polymorphism clone of the core of the structure satisfies some nontrivial system of identities, and such satisfaction is always witnessed by several specific nontrivial systems of identities which do not depend on the structure.
The tractability conjecture has been generalized in the above formulation to a certain class of infinite domain CSPs, namely, CSPs of reducts of finitely bounded homogeneous structures. It was subsequently shown that the conjectured borderline between hardness and tractability, i.e., a natural reduction from 3-SAT, can be characterized for this class by a combination of algebraic and topological properties. However, it was not known whether the topological component is essential in this characterization.
We provide a negative answer to this question by proving that the borderline is characterized by one specific algebraic identity, namely the pseudo-Siggers identity $αs(x,y,x,z,y,z) \approx βs(y,x,z,x,z,y)$. This accomplishes one of the steps of a proposed strategy for reducing the infinite domain CSP dichotomy conjecture to the finite case. Our main theorem is also of independent mathematical interest, characterizing a topological property of any $ω$-categorical core structure (the existence of a continuous homomorphism of a stabilizer of its polymorphism clone to the projections) in purely algebraic terms (the failure of an identity as above).
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 tr…
A temporal (constraint) language is a relational structure with a first-order definition in the rational numbers with the order. We study here the complexity of the Quantified Constraint Satisfaction Problem (QCSP) for temporal constraint languages. Our main contribution is a dichotomy for the restricted class of dually-closed temporal languages. We prove that QCSP for such a language is either solvable in polynomial time or it is hard for NP or coNP. Our result generalizes a similar dichotomy of QCSPs for equality languages, which are relational structures definable by Boolean combinations of…
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…
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…
Finite valued constraint satisfaction problems are a formalism for describing many natural optimization problems, where constraints on the values that variables can take come with rational weights and the aim is to find an assignment of minimal cost. Thapper and Zivny have recently established a complexity dichotomy for finite valued constraint languages. They show that each such language either gives rise to a polynomial-time solvable optimization problem, or to an NP-hard one, and establish a criterion to distinguish the two cases. We refine the dichotomy by showing that all optimization pro…
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 Algebraic Dichotomy Conjecture states that the Constraint Satisfaction Problem over a fixed template is solvable in polynomial time if the algebra of polymorphisms associated to the template lies in a Taylor variety, and is NP-complete otherwise. This paper provides two new characterizations of finitely generated Taylor varieties. The first characterization is using absorbing subalgebras and the second one cyclic terms. These new conditions allow us to reprove the conjecture of Bang-Jensen and Hell (proved by the authors) and the characterization of locally finite Taylor varieties using we…
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…
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…
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.
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 if the model-complete core of the template has a pseudo-Siggers polymorphism, and NP-complete otherwise. One of the important questions related to the dichotomy 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., identitie…
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…
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 $n\geq 3$, 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 …
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…
The logic MMSNP is a restricted fragment of existential second-order logic which allows to express many interesting queries in graph theory and finite model theory. The logic was introduced by Feder and Vardi who showed that every MMSNP sentence is computationally equivalent to a finite-domain constraint satisfaction problem (CSP); the involved probabilistic reductions were derandomized by Kun using explicit constructions of expander structures. We present a new proof of the reduction to finite-domain CSPs which does not rely on the results of Kun. This new proof allows us to obtain a stronger…
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…
Amalgamation SNP (ASNP) is a fragment of existential second-order logic that strictly contains binary connected MMSNP of Feder and Vardi and binary guarded monotone SNP of Bienvenu, ten Cate, Lutz, and Wolter; it is a promising candidate for an expressive subclass of NP that exhibits a complexity dichotomy. We show that ASNP has a complexity dichotomy if and only if the infinite-domain dichotomy conjecture holds for constraint satisfaction problems for first-order reducts of binary finitely bounded homogeneous structures. For such CSPs, powerful universal-algebraic hardness conditions are know…
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…
We study the model checking problem, for fixed structures A, over positive equality-free first-order logic -- a natural generalisation of the non-uniform quantified constraint satisfaction problem QCSP(A). We prove a complete complexity classification for this problem when A ranges over 1.) boolean structures and 2.) digraphs of size (less than or equal to) three. The former class displays dichotomy between Logspace and Pspace-complete, while the latter class displays tetrachotomy between Logspace, NP-complete, co-NP-complete and Pspace-complete.
Three Fundamental Questions in Modern Infinite-Domain Constraint Satisfaction
TU Wien（维也纳工业大学）；Institut für Diskrete Mathematik und Geometrie, FB Algebra, TU Wien（维也纳工业大学离散数学与几何研究所代数系）；TU Dresden（德累斯顿工业大学）；Institut für Algebra, TU Dresden（德累斯顿工业大学代数研究所）
The algebraic approach to the Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) uses high order symmetries of relational structures -- polymorphisms -- to study the complexity of the CSP. In this paper we further develop one of the methods the algebraic approach can be implemented, and apply it to some kinds of the CSP. This method was introduced in our LICS 2004 paper and involves the study of the local structure of finite algebras and relational structures. It associates with an algebra A or a relational structure S a graph, whose vertices are the elements of A (or S), the edges represent subsets of A s…
Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7（巴黎第七大学（巴黎狄德罗大学））；Université Paris 7（巴黎第七大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；Université Paris 6（巴黎第六大学）；Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg（阿尔伯特-路德维希-弗莱堡大学）；ENS Lyon（里昂高等师范学院）；INRIA（法国国家信息与自动化研究所）；ENS Cachan（卡尚高等师范学院）；Université Pompeu Fabra（庞培法布拉大学）；Université de Linköping（林雪平大学）
A constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is a computational problem where the input consists of a finite set of variables and a finite set of constraints, and where the task is to decide whether there exists a satisfying assignment of values to the variables. Depending on the type of constraints that we allow in the input, a CSP might be tractable, or computationally hard. In recent years, general criteria have been discovered that imply that a CSP is polynomial-time tractable, or that it is NP-hard. Finite-domain CSPs have become a major common research focus of graph theory, artificial intell…
In 1978, Schaefer proved his famous dichotomy theorem for generalized satisfiability problems. He defined an infinite number of propositional satisfiability problems (nowadays usually called Boolean constraint satisfaction problems) and showed that all these satisfiability problems are either in P or NP-complete. In recent years, similar results have been obtained for quite a few other problems for Boolean constraints.Almost all of these problems are variations of the satisfiability problem. In this paper, we address a problem that is not a variation of satisfiability, namely, the isomorphism …
A fundamental fact for the algebraic theory of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) over a fixed template is that pp-interpretations between at most countable ω-categorical relational structures have two algebraic counterparts for their polymorphism clones: a semantic one via the standard algebraic operators H, S, P, and a syntactic one via clone homomorphisms (capturing identities). We provide a similar characterization which incorporates all relational constructions relevant for CSPs, that is, homomorphic equivalence and adding singletons to cores in addition to pp-interpretations. For th…
In the field of constraint satisfaction problems (CSP), promise CSPs are an exciting new direction of study. In a promise CSP, each constraint comes in two forms: "strict" and "weak," and in the associated decision problem one must distinguish between being able to satisfy all the strict constraints versus not being able to satisfy all the weak constraints. The most commonly cited example of a promise CSP is the approximate graph coloring problem--which has recently seen exciting progress [BKO19, WZ20] benefiting from a systematic algebraic approach to promise CSPs based on "polymorphisms," op…
