arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Eren Keskin.
Reachability in pushdown vector addition systems with states (PVASS) is among the longest standing open problems in Theoretical Computer Science. We show that the problem is decidable in full generality. Our decision procedure is similar in spirit to the KLMST algorithm for VASS reachability, but works over objects that support an elaborate form of procedure summarization as known from pushdown reachability.
The omega-regular separability problem for Büchi VASS coverability languages has recently been shown to be decidable, but with an EXPSPACE lower and a non-primitive recursive upper bound -- the exact complexity remained open. We close this gap and show that the problem is EXPSPACE-complete. A careful analysis of our complexity bounds additionally yields a PSPACE procedure in the case of fixed dimension >= 1, which matches a pre-established lower bound of PSPACE for one dimensional Büchi VASS. Our algorithm is a non-deterministic search for a witness whose size, as we show, can be suitably bounded. Part of the procedure is to decide the existence of runs in VASS that satisfy certain non-linear properties. Therefore, a key technical ingredient is to analyze a class of systems of inequalities where one variable may occur in non-linear (polynomial) expressions. These so-called singly non-linear systems (SNLS) take the form A(x).y >= b(x), where A(x) and b(x) are a matrix resp. a vector whose entries are polynomials in x, and y ranges over vectors in the rationals. Our main contribution on SNLS is an exponential upper bound on the size of rational solutions to singly non-linear systems. The proof consists of three steps. First, we give a tailor-made quantifier elimination to characterize all real solutions to x. Second, using the root separation theorem about the distance of real roots of polynomials, we show that if a rational solution exists, then there is one with at most polynomially many bits. Third, we insert the solution for x into the SNLS, making it linear and allowing us to invoke standard solution bounds from convex geometry. Finally, we combine the results about SNLS with several techniques from the area of VASS to devise an EXPSPACE decision procedure for omega-regular separability of Büchi VASS.
We study the languages recognized by well-structured transition systems (WSTS) with upward and downward compatibility. Our first result shows that every pair of disjoint WSTS languages is regularly separable: there is a regular language containing one of them while being disjoint from the other. As a consequence, if a language as well as its complement are both recognized by WSTS, then they are necessarily regular. Our second result shows that the languages recognized by deterministic WSTS form a strict subclass of the languages recognized by all WSTS: we give a non-deterministic WSTS language that we prove cannot be recognized by a deterministic WSTS. The proof relies on a novel characterization of the languages accepted by deterministic WSTS.
We show that the regular separability problem of VASS reachability languages is decidable and $\mathbf{F}_{\omega}$-complete. At the heart of our decision procedure are doubly-marked graph transition sequences, a new proof object that tracks a suitable product of the VASS we wish to separate. We give a decomposition algorithm for DMGTS that not only achieves perfectness as known from MGTS, but also a new property called faithfulness. Faithfulness allows us to construct, from a regular separator for the $\mathbb{Z}$-versions of the VASS, a regular separator for the $\mathbb{N}$-versions. Behind faithfulness is the insight that, for separability, it is sufficient to track the counters of one VASS modulo a large number that is determined by the decomposition.
We propose urgency programs, a new programming model with support for alternation, imperfect information, and recursion. The novelty are urgency annotations that decorate the (angelic and demonic) choice operators and control the order in which alternation is resolved. We study standard notions of contextual equivalence for urgency programs. Our first main result are fully abstract characterizations of these relations based on sound and complete axiomatizations. Our second main result settles their computability via a normal form construction. Notably, we show that the contextual preorder is (2h-1)-EXPTIME-complete for programs of maximal urgency h when the regular observable is given as an input resp. PTIME-complete when the regular observable is fixed. We designed urgency programs as a framework in which it is convenient to formulate and study verification and synthesis problems. We demonstrate this on a number of examples including the verification of concurrent and recursive programs and hyper model checking.