Undecidability and initial segments of the (r.e.) tt-degrees

1990 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 987-1006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Ann Haught ◽  
Richard A. Shore

A notion of reducibility ≤r between sets is specified by giving a set of procedures for computing one set from another. We say that a set A is r-reducible to a set B, A ≤rB, if one of the procedures applied to B gives A. Associated with any such reducibility notion is the structure of r-degrees, the equivalence classes of sets with respect to this reducibility, with the induced ordering. The most general notion of a computable reducibility is that of Turing, ≤T. Here we say that A ≤TB if there is a Turing machine φe which, when equipped with an oracle for B, computes A: φeB = A. Such Turing degree computations are characterized by the phenomenon that only during the computation itself do we discover which questions about B need to be answered to compute A(x). In contrast, for nearly all other computable reducibilities the set of questions needed is given in advance by a recursive procedure. Perhaps the most common example of such a procedure is many-one reducibility, ≤m: A ≤mB if there is a recursive function f such that x ∈ A ⇔ f(x) ∈ B.Reducibilities with the property that the output, A(x), is determined by the answers that B gives to a set of questions calculated recursively from x are said to be of tabular type. The most general tabular reducibility is called truth-table reducibility, ≤tt. The procedures [e] associated with this reducibility are specified by a recursive function f (= {e}) which, for each x, gives a set of n questions about the oracle and, for each of the possible 2n sets of answers, gives the corresponding output. As usual this defines A ≤ttB as “there is an e such that [e]B = A”. It is with this notion of reducibility and the associated tt-degrees that we shall be concerned in this paper. Basic information on several such strong reducibilities can be found in Rogers [28]. For more information we recommend the survey articles by Odifreddi [25] and Degtev [2] as well as Odifreddi's book [26].

1974 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hanf

A finite set of tiles (unit squares with colored edges) is said to tile the plane if there exists an arrangement of translated (but not rotated or reflected) copies of the squares which fill the plane in such a way that abutting edges of the squares have the same color. The problem of whether there exists a finite set of tiles which can be used to tile the plane but not in any periodic fashion was proposed by Hao Wang [9] and solved by Robert Berger [1]. Raphael Robinson [7] gives a more detailed history and a very economical solution to this and related problems; we will assume that the reader is familiar with §4 of [7]. In 1971, Dale Myers asked whether there exists a finite set of tiles which can tile the plane but not in any recursive fashion. If we make an additional restriction (called the origin constraint) that a given tile must be used at least once, then the positive answer is given by the main theorem of this paper. Using the Turing machine constructed here and a more complicated version of Berger and Robinson's construction, Myers [5] has recently solved the problem without the origin constraint.Given a finite set of tiles T1, …, Tn, we can describe a tiling of the plane by a function f of two variables ranging over the integers. f(i, j) = k specifies that the tile Tk is to be placed at the position in the plane with coordinates (i, j). The tiling will be said to be recursive if f is a recursive function.


2013 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 1307-1327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna N. Y. Franklin ◽  
Noam Greenberg ◽  
Frank Stephan ◽  
Guohua Wu

AbstractIn contrast with the notion of complexity, a set A is called anti-complex if the Kolmogorov complexity of the initial segments of A chosen by a recursive function is always bounded by the identity function. We show that, as for complexity, the natural arena for examining anti-complexity is the weak-truth table degrees. In this context, we show the equivalence of anti-complexity and other lowness notions such as r.e. traceability or being weak truth-table reducible to a Schnorr trivial set. A set A is anti-complex if and only if it is reducible to another set B with tiny use, whereby we mean that the use function for reducing A to B can be made to grow arbitrarily slowly, as gauged by unbounded nondecreasing recursive functions. This notion of reducibility is then studied in its own right, and we also investigate its range and the range of its uniform counterpart.


1983 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Bernardi ◽  
Andrea Sorbi

AbstractGiven two (positive) equivalence relations ~1, ~2 on the set ω of natural numbers, we say that ~1 is m-reducible to ~2 if there exists a total recursive function h such that for every x, y ∈ ω, we have x ~1y iff hx ~2hy. We prove that the equivalence relation induced in ω by a positive precomplete numeration is complete with respect to this reducibility (and, moreover, a “uniformity property” holds). This result allows us to state a classification theorem for positive equivalence relations (Theorem 2). We show that there exist nonisomorphic positive equivalence relations which are complete with respect to the above reducibility; in particular, we discuss the provable equivalence of a strong enough theory: this relation is complete with respect to reducibility but it does not correspond to a precomplete numeration.From this fact we deduce that an equivalence relation on ω can be strongly represented by a formula (see Definition 8) iff it is positive. At last, we interpret the situation from a topological point of view. Among other things, we generalize a result of Visser by showing that the topological space corresponding to a partition in e.i. sets is irreducible and we prove that the set of equivalence classes of true sentences is dense in the Lindenbaum algebra of the theory.


1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-291
Author(s):  
Peter Clote

AbstractWe give a new characterization of the hyperarithmetic sets: a set X of integers is recursive in eα if and only if there is a Turing machine which computes X and “halts” in less than or equal to the ordinal number ωα of steps. This result represents a generalization of the well-known “limit lemma” due to J. R. Shoenfield [Sho-1] and later independently by H. Putnam [Pu] and independently by E. M. Gold [Go]. As an application of this result, we give a recursion theoretic analysis of clopen determinacy: there is a correlation given between the height α of a well-founded tree corresponding to a clopen game A ⊆ ωω and the Turing degree of a winning strategy ƒ for one of the players—roughly, ƒ can be chosen to be recursive in 0α and this is the best possible (see §4 for precise results).


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 1461-1584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Küsters ◽  
Max Tuengerthal ◽  
Daniel Rausch

Abstract The universal composability paradigm allows for the modular design and analysis of cryptographic protocols. It has been widely and successfully used in cryptography. However, devising a coherent yet simple and expressive model for universal composability is, as the history of such models shows, highly non-trivial. For example, several partly severe problems have been pointed out in the literature for the UC model. In this work, we propose a coherent model for universal composability, called the IITM model (“Inexhaustible Interactive Turing Machine”). A main feature of the model is that it is stated without a priori fixing irrelevant details, such as a specific way of addressing of machines by session and party identifiers, a specific modeling of corruption, or a specific protocol hierarchy. In addition, we employ a very general notion of runtime. All reasonable protocols and ideal functionalities should be expressible based on this notion in a direct and natural way, and without tweaks, such as (artificial) padding of messages or (artificially) adding extra messages. Not least because of these features, the model is simple and expressive. Also the general results that we prove, such as composition theorems, hold independently of how such details are fixed for concrete applications. Being inspired by other models for universal composability, in particular the UC model and because of the flexibility and expressivity of the IITM model, conceptually, results formulated in these models directly carry over to the IITM model.


2002 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 1579-1580
Author(s):  
Rodney G. Downey ◽  
Steffen Lempp

A computably enumerable Turing degree a is called contiguous iff it contains only a single computably enumerable weak truth table degree (Ladner and Sasso [2]). In [1], the authors proved that a nonzero computably enumerable degree a is contiguous iff it is locally distributive, that is, for all a1, a2, c with a1 ∪a2 = a and c ≤ a, there exist ci, ≤ ai with c1 ∪ c2 = c.To do this we supposed that W was a computably enumerable set and ∪ a computably set with a Turing functional Φ such that ΦW = U. Then we constructed computably enumerable sets A0, A1 and B together with functionals Γ0, Γ1, Γ, and Δ so thatand so as to satisfy all the requirements below.That is, we built a degree-theoretical splitting A0, A1 of W and a set B ≤TW such that if we cannot beat all possible degree-theoretical splittings V0, V1 of B then we were able to witness the fact that U ≤WW (via Λ).After the proof it was observed that the set U of the proof (page 1222, paragraph 4) needed only to be Δ20. It was then claimed that a consequence to the proof was that every contiguous computably enumerable degree was, in fact, strongly contiguous, in the sense that all (not necessarily computably enumerable) sets of the degree had the same weak truth table degree.


Author(s):  
Stewart Shapiro

An algorithm or mechanical procedure A is said to ‘compute’ a function f if, for any n in the domain of f, when given n as input, A eventually produces fn as output. A function is ‘computable’ if there is an algorithm that computes it. A set S is ‘decidable’ if there is an algorithm that decides membership in S: if, given any appropriate n as input, the algorithm would output ‘yes’ if n∈S, and ‘no’ if n∉S. The notions of ‘algorithm’, ‘computable’ and ‘decidable’ are informal (or pre-formal) in that they have meaning independently of, and prior to, attempts at rigorous formulation. Church’s thesis, first proposed by Alonzo Church in a paper published in 1936, is the assertion that a function is computable if and only if it is recursive: ‘We now define the notion…of an effectively calculable function…by identifying it with the notion of a recursive function….’ Independently, Alan Turing argued that a function is computable if and only if there is a Turing machine that computes it; and he showed that a function is Turing-computable if and only if it is recursive. Church’s thesis is widely accepted today. Since an algorithm can be ‘read off’ a recursive derivation, every recursive function is computable. Three types of ‘evidence’ have been cited for the converse. First, every algorithm that has been examined has been shown to compute a recursive function. Second, Turing, Church and others provided analyses of the moves available to a person following a mechanical procedure, arguing that everything can be simulated by a Turing machine, a recursive derivation, and so on. The third consideration is ‘confluence’. Several different characterizations, developed more or less independently, have been shown to be coextensive, suggesting that all of them are on target. The list includes recursiveness, Turing computability, Herbrand–Gödel derivability, λ-definability and Markov algorithm computability.


2009 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 1218-1228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Bienvenu ◽  
Adam R. Day ◽  
Rupert Hölzl

AbstractAn infinite binary sequence A is absolutely undecidable if it is impossible to compute A on a set of positions of positive upper density. Absolute undecidability is a weakening of bi-immunity. Downey, Jockusch and Schupp [2] asked whether, unlike the case for bi-immunity, there is an absolutely undecidable set in every non-zero Turing degree. We provide a positive answer to this question by applying techniques from coding theory. We show how to use Walsh–Hadamard codes to build a truth-table functional which maps any sequence A to a sequence B, such that given any restriction of B to a set of positive upper density, one can recover A. This implies that if A is non-computable, then B is absolutely undecidable. Using a forcing construction, we show that this result cannot be strengthened in any significant fashion.


2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (02n03) ◽  
pp. 195-204
Author(s):  
Satoshi Iriyama ◽  
Masanori Ohya

Ohya and Volovich discussed a quantum algorithm for the SAT problem with a chaos amplification process (OMV SAT algorithm) and showed that the number of steps it performed was polynomial in input size. In this paper, we define a generalized quantum Turing machine (GQTM) and related computational complexity. Then we show that there exists a GQTM which recognizes the SAT problem in polynomial time. Moreover, we discuss the problem of finding the quantum algorithm for a partial recursive function.


1980 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 510-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel E. Cohen

Modular machines were introduced in [1] and [2], where they were used to give simple proofs of various unsolvability results in group theory. Here we discuss the degrees of the halting, word, and confluence problems for modular machines, both for their own sake and in the hope that the results may be useful in group theory (see [4] for an application of a related result to group theory).In the course of the analysis, I found it convenient to compare degrees of these problems for a Turing machine T and for a Turing machine T1 obtained from T by enlarging the alphabet but retaining the same quintuples (or quadruples). The results were surprising. The degree for a problem of T1 depends not just on the corresponding degree for T, but also on the degrees of the corresponding problems when T is restricted to a semi-infinite tape (both semi-infinite to the right and semi-infinite to the left). For the halting and confluence problems, the Turing degrees of the problems for these three machines can be any r.e. degrees. In particular the halting problem of T can be solvable, while that of T1 has any r.e. degree.A machine M (in the general sense) consists of a countable set of configurations (together with a numbering, which we usually take for granted), a recursive subset of configurations called the terminal configurations, and a recursive function, written C ⇒ C′, on the set of configurations. If, for some n ≥ 0, we have C = C0 ⇒ C1 ⇒ … ⇒ Cn = C′, we write C → C′. We say M halts from C if C → C′ for some terminal C′.


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