On Infinite Variants of NP-Complete Problems
Journal of Computer and System Sciences SS1432 journal of computer and system sciences 53, 180193 (1996) article no. 0060 View metadata, citation and similarTaking papers at core.ac.uk It to the Limit: On Infinite Variants brought to you by CORE of NP-Complete Problems provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Tirza Hirst and David Harel* Department of Applied Mathematics H Computer Science, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel Received November 1, 1993 We first set up a general way of obtaining infinite versions We define infinite, recursive versions of NP optimization problems. of NP maximization and minimization problems. If P is the For example, MAX CLIQUE becomes the question of whether a recursive problem that asks for a maximum by graph contains an infinite clique. The present paper was motivated by trying to understand what makes some NP problems highly max |[wÄ : A<,(wÄ , S)]|, undecidable in the infinite case, while others remain on low levels of S the arithmetical hierarchy. We prove two results; one enables using knowledge about the infinite case to yield implications to the finite where ,(wÄ , S) is first-order and A is a finite structure (say, case, and the other enables implications in the other direction. a graph), we define P as the problem that asks whether Moreover, taken together, the two results provide a method for proving there is an S, such that the set [wÄ : A<,(w, S)] is infinite, (finitary) problems to be outside the syntactic class MAX NP, and, where A is an infinite recursive structure. Thus, for example, hence, outside MAX SNP too, by showing that their infinite versions are 1 Max Clique becomes the question of whether a recursive 71-complete.
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