Tropically Convex Constraint Satisfaction

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

A semilinear relation S⊆ ℚn is max-closed if it is preserved by taking the componentwise maximum. The constraint satisfaction problem for max-closed semilinear constraints is at least as hard as determining the winner in Mean Payoff Games, a notorious problem of open computational complexity. Mean Payoff Games are known to be in NP ∩ co− NP, which is not known for max-closed semilinear constraints. Semilinear relations that are max-closed and additionally closed under translations have been called tropically convex in the literature. One of our main results is a new duality for open tropically convex relations, which puts the CSP for tropically convex semilinear constraints in general into NP ∩ co− NP. This extends the corresponding complexity result for scheduling under and-or precedence constraints, or equivalently the max-atoms problem. To this end, we present a characterization of max-closed semilinear relations in terms of syntactically restricted first-order logic, and another characterization in terms of a finite set of relations L that allow primitive positive definitions of all other relations in the class. We also present a subclass of max-closed constraints where the CSP is in P; this class generalizes the class of max-closed constraints over finite domains, and the feasibility problem for max-closed linear inequalities. Finally, we show that the class of max-closed semilinear constraints is maximal in the sense that as soon as a single relation that is not max-closed is added to L, the CSP becomes NP-hard.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)481-509
Number of pages29
JournalTheory of computing systems
Volume62
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2018
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-8228-3611/work/142241089

Keywords

Keywords

  • Computational complexity, Constraint satisfaction, Max-closure, Max-plus-average inequalities, Piecewise linear constraints, Semi-linear relations, Stochastic games, Tropical convexity