arXiv subjects

Martin Zimmermann

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Zimmermann.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Origin of the quasi-quantized Hall effect in ZrTe5

The quantum Hall effect (QHE) is traditionally considered a purely two-dimensional (2D) phenomenon. Recently, a three-dimensional (3D) version of the QHE has been reported in the Dirac semimetal ZrTe5. It was proposed to arise from a magnetic-field-driven Fermi surface instability, transforming the original 3D electron system into a stack of 2D sheets. Here, we report thermodynamic, thermoelectric and charge transport measurements on ZrTe5 in the quantum Hall regime. The measured thermodynamic properties: magnetization and ultrasound propagation, show no signatures of a Fermi surface instability, consistent with in-field single crystal X-ray diffraction. Instead, a direct comparison of the experimental data with linear response calculations based on an effective 3D Dirac Hamiltonian suggests that the quasi-quantization of the observed Hall response is an intrinsic property of the 3D electronic structure. Our findings render the Hall effect in ZrTe5 a truly 3D counterpart of the QHE in 2D systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Optimal Strategies in Weighted Limit Games

We prove the existence and computability of optimal strategies in weighted limit games, zero-sum infinite-duration games with a Büchi-style winning condition requiring to produce infinitely many play prefixes that satisfy a given regular specification. Quality of plays is measured in the maximal weight of infixes between successive play prefixes that satisfy the specification.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2020

Optimal Strategies in Weighted Limit Games (full version)

cs.GT↗

arXiv2020

Optimally Resilient Strategies in Pushdown Safety Games

Infinite-duration games with disturbances extend the classical framework of infinite-duration games, which captures the reactive synthesis problem, with a discrete measure of resilience against non-antagonistic external influence. This concerns events where the observed system behavior differs from the intended one prescribed by the controller. For games played on finite arenas it is known that computing optimally resilient strategies only incurs a polynomial overhead over solving classical games. This paper studies safety games with disturbances played on infinite arenas induced by pushdown systems. We show how to compute optimally resilient strategies in triply-exponential time. For the subclass of safety games played on one-counter configuration graphs, we show that determining the degree of resilience of the initial configuration is PSPACE-complete and that optimally resilient strategies can be computed in doubly-exponential time.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2019

Finite-state Strategies in Delay Games (full version)

What is a finite-state strategy in a delay game? We answer this surprisingly non-trivial question by presenting a very general framework that allows to remove delay: finite-state strategies exist for all winning conditions where the resulting delay-free game admits a finite-state strategy. The framework is applicable to games whose winning condition is recognized by an automaton with an acceptance condition that satisfies a certain aggregation property. Our framework also yields upper bounds on the complexity of determining the winner of such delay games and upper bounds on the necessary lookahead to win the game. In particular, we cover all previous results of that kind as special cases of our uniform approach.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2019

The Keys to Decidable HyperLTL Satisfiability: Small Models or Very Simple Formulas

HyperLTL, the extension of Linear Temporal Logic by trace quantifiers, is a uniform framework for expressing information flow policies by relating multiple traces of a security-critical system. HyperLTL has been successfully applied to express fundamental security policies like noninterference and observational determinism, but has also found applications beyond security, e.g., distributed protocols and coding theory. However, HyperLTL satisfiability is undecidable as soon as there are existential quantifiers in the scope of a universal one. To overcome this severe limitation to applicability, we investigate here restricted variants of the satisfiability problem to pinpoint the decidability border. First, we restrict the space of admissible models and show decidability when restricting the search space to models of bounded size or to finitely representable ones. Second, we consider formulas with restricted nesting of temporal operators and show that nesting depth one yields decidability for a slightly larger class of quantifier prefixes. We provide tight complexity bounds in almost all cases.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2019

Promptness and Bounded Fairness in Concurrent and Parameterized Systems

We investigate the satisfaction of specifications in Prompt Linear Temporal Logic (Prompt-LTL) by concurrent systems. Prompt-LTL is an extension of LTL that allows to specify parametric bounds on the satisfaction of eventualities, thus adding a quantitative aspect to the specification language. We establish a connection between bounded fairness, bounded stutter equivalence, and the satisfaction of Prompt-LTL\X formulas. Based on this connection, we prove the first cutoff results for different classes of systems with a parametric number of components and quantitative specifications, thereby identifying previously unknown decidable fragments of the parameterized model checking problem.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2019

Synthesizing Optimally Resilient Controllers

Recently, Dallal, Neider, and Tabuada studied a generalization of the classical game-theoretic model used in program synthesis, which additionally accounts for unmodeled intermittent disturbances. In this extended framework, one is interested in computing optimally resilient strategies, i.e., strategies that are resilient against as many disturbances as possible. Dallal, Neider, and Tabuada showed how to compute such strategies for safety specifications. In this work, we compute optimally resilient strategies for a much wider range of winning conditions and show that they do not require more memory than winning strategies in the classical model. Our algorithms only have a polynomial overhead in comparison to the ones computing winning strategies. In particular, for parity conditions, optimally resilient strategies are positional and can be computed in quasipolynomial time.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2019

Robust, Expressive, and Quantitative Linear Temporal Logics: Pick any Two for Free

Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) is the standard specification language for reactive systems and is successfully applied in industrial settings. However, many shortcomings of LTL have been identified in the literature, among them the limited expressiveness, the lack of quantitative features, and the inability to express robustness. There is work on overcoming these shortcomings, but each of these is typically addressed in isolation. This is insufficient for applications where all shortcomings manifest themselves simultaneously. Here, we tackle this issue by introducing logics that address more than one shortcoming. To this end, we combine the logics Linear Dynamic Logic, Prompt-LTL, and robust LTL, each addressing one aspect, to new logics. For all combinations of two aspects, the resulting logic has the same desirable algorithmic properties as plain LTL. In particular, the highly efficient algorithmic backends that have been developed for LTL are also applicable to these new logics. Finally, we discuss how to address all three aspects simultaneously.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2019

Parity Games with Weights

Quantitative extensions of parity games have recently attracted significant interest. These extensions include parity games with energy and payoff conditions as well as finitary parity games and their generalization to parity games with costs. Finitary parity games enjoy a special status among these extensions, as they offer a native combination of the qualitative and quantitative aspects in infinite games: The quantitative aspect of finitary parity games is a quality measure for the qualitative aspect, as it measures the limit superior of the time it takes to answer an odd color by a larger even one. Finitary parity games have been extended to parity games with costs, where each transition is labeled with a nonnegative weight that reflects the costs incurred by taking it. We lift this restriction and consider parity games with costs with arbitrary integer weights. We show that solving such games is in NP $\cap$ coNP, the signature complexity for games of this type. We also show that the protagonist has finite-state winning strategies, and provide tight pseudo-polynomial bounds for the memory he needs to win the game. Naturally, the antagonist may need infinite memory to win. Moreover, we present tight bounds on the quality of winning strategies for the protagonist. Furthermore, we investigate the problem of determining, for a given threshold $b$, whether the protagonist has a strategy of quality at most $b$ and show this problem to be EXPTIME-complete. The protagonist inherits the necessity of exponential memory for implementing such strategies from the special case of finitary parity games.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2018

Proceedings Ninth International Symposium on Games, Automata, Logics, and Formal Verification

This volume contains the proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium on Games, Automata, Logic and Formal Verification (GandALF 2018). The symposium took place in Saarbrücken, Germany, from the 26th to the 28th of September 2018. The GandALF symposium was established by a group of Italian computer scientists interested in mathematical logic, automata theory, game theory, and their applications to the specification, design, and verification of complex systems. Its aim is to provide a forum where people from different areas, and possibly with different backgrounds, can fruitfully interact. GandALF has a truly international spirit, as witnessed by the composition of the program and steering committee and by the country distribution of the submitted papers.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2018

Parity to Safety in Polynomial Time for Pushdown and Collapsible Pushdown Systems

We give a direct polynomial-time reduction from parity games played over the configuration graphs of collapsible pushdown systems to safety games played over the same class of graphs. That a polynomial-time reduction would exist was known since both problems are complete for the same complexity class. Coming up with a direct reduction, however, has been an open problem. Our solution to the puzzle brings together a number of techniques for pushdown games and adds three new ones. This work contributes to a recent trend of liveness to safety reductions which allow the advanced state-of-the-art in safety checking to be used for more expressive specifications.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2018

Team Semantics for the Specification and Verification of Hyperproperties

We develop team semantics for Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) to express hyperproperties, which have recently been identified as a key concept in the verification of information flow properties. Conceptually, we consider an asynchronous and a synchronous variant of team semantics. We study basic properties of this new logic and classify the computational complexity of its satisfiability, path, and model checking problem. Further, we examine how extensions of these basic logics react on adding other atomic operators. Finally, we compare its expressivity to the one of HyperLTL, another recently introduced logic for hyperproperties. Our results show that LTL under team semantics is a viable alternative to HyperLTL, which complements the expressivity of HyperLTL and has partially better algorithmic properties.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2018

Distributed Synthesis for Parameterized Temporal Logics

We consider the synthesis of distributed implementations for specifications in parameterized temporal logics such as PROMPT-LTL, which extends LTL by temporal operators equipped with parameters that bound their scope. For single process synthesis it is well-established that such parametric extensions do not increase worst-case complexities. For synchronous distributed systems we show that, despite being more powerful, the realizability problem for PROMPT-LTL is not harder than its LTL counterpart. For asynchronous systems we have to express scheduling assumptions and therefore consider an assume-guarantee synthesis problem. As asynchronous distributed synthesis is already undecidable for LTL, we give a semi-decision procedure for the PROMPT-LTL assume-guarantee synthesis problem based on bounded synthesis. Finally, we show that our results extend to the stronger logics PLTL and PLDL.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2017

Easy to Win, Hard to Master: Optimal Strategies in Parity Games with Costs

The winning condition of a parity game with costs requires an arbitrary, but fixed bound on the cost incurred between occurrences of odd colors and the next occurrence of a larger even one. Such games quantitatively extend parity games while retaining most of their attractive properties, i.e, determining the winner is in NP and co-NP and one player has positional winning strategies. We show that the characteristics of parity games with costs are vastly different when asking for strategies realizing the minimal such bound: The solution problem becomes PSPACE-complete and exponential memory is both necessary in general and always sufficient. Thus, solving and playing parity games with costs optimally is harder than just winning them. Moreover, we show that the tradeoff between the memory size and the realized bound is gradual in general. All these results hold true for both a unary and binary encoding of costs. Moreover, we investigate Streett games with costs. Here, playing optimally is as hard as winning, both in terms of complexity and memory.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2017

Finite-state Strategies in Delay Games

What is a finite-state strategy in a delay game? We answer this surprisingly non-trivial question and present a very general framework for computing such strategies: they exist for all winning conditions that are recognized by automata with acceptance conditions that satisfy a certain aggregation property. Our framework also yields upper bounds on the complexity of determining the winner of such delay games and upper bounds on the necessary lookahead to win the game. In particular, we cover all previous results of that kind as special cases of our uniform approach.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2017

How Much Lookahead is Needed to Win Infinite Games?

Delay games are two-player games of infinite duration in which one player may delay her moves to obtain a lookahead on her opponent's moves. For $ω$-regular winning conditions it is known that such games can be solved in doubly-exponential time and that doubly-exponential lookahead is sufficient. We improve upon both results by giving an exponential time algorithm and an exponential upper bound on the necessary lookahead. This is complemented by showing EXPTIME-hardness of the solution problem and tight exponential lower bounds on the lookahead. Both lower bounds already hold for safety conditions. Furthermore, solving delay games with reachability conditions is shown to be PSPACE-complete. This is a corrected version of the paper https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.3701v4 published originally on August 26, 2016.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2017

Visibly Linear Dynamic Logic

We introduce Visibly Linear Dynamic Logic (VLDL), which extends Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) by temporal operators that are guarded by visibly pushdown languages over finite words. In VLDL one can, e.g., express that a function resets a variable to its original value after its execution, even in the presence of an unbounded number of intermediate recursive calls. We prove that VLDL describes exactly the $ω$-visibly pushdown languages. Thus it is strictly more expressive than LTL and able to express recursive properties of programs with unbounded call stacks. The main technical contribution of this work is a translation of VLDL into $ω$-visibly pushdown automata of exponential size via one-way alternating jumping automata. This translation yields exponential-time algorithms for satisfiability, validity, and model checking. We also show that visibly pushdown games with VLDL winning conditions are solvable in triply-exponential time. We prove all these problems to be complete for their respective complexity classes.

cs.LO↗