Two Variable Logic with Ultimately Periodic Counting

Abstract

SIAM Journal on Computing, Volume 53, Issue 4, Page 884-968, August 2024.
Abstract. We consider the extension of [math] with quantifiers that state that the number of elements where a formula holds should belong to a given ultimately periodic set. We show that both satisfiability and finite satisfiability of the logic are decidable. We also show that the spectrum of any sentence, i.e., the set of the sizes of its finite models, is definable in Presburger arithmetic. In the process we present several refinements to the “biregular graph method.” In this method, decidability issues concerning two-variable logics are reduced to questions about Presburger definability of integer vectors associated with partitioned graphs, where nodes in a partition satisfy certain constraints on their in- and out-degrees.