Rabin's Tree Theorem proceeds by effective translations of MSO-formulae to tree automata. We show that the operations on automata used in these translations can be organized in a deduction system based on intuitionistic linear logic (ILL). We propose a computational interpretation of this deduction system along the lines of the Curry-Howard proofs-as-programs correspondence. This interpretation, relying on the usual technology of game semantics, maps proofs to strategies in categories of two-player games generalizing the usual acceptance games of tree automata.

In this talk, I will present a framework combining the rank-based approach with the notion of $d$-neighbor equivalence. The rank-based approach is a technique introduced by Bodlaender et al. in 2015 to obtained $2^{O(k)}\cdot n$ time algorithms, $k$ the treewidth of the input graph, for a wide range of connectivity problems.

The $d$-neighbor equivalence is a tools introduced by Bui-Xuan et al. in 2013 to obtained efficient parameterized algorithms for many width measures (clique-width, rank-width, mim-width,…) and for many problems with a locally checkable constraint (Dominating Set, Independent Set,…).

By combining these two notions, we obtain efficient algorithms for several connectivity problems such as Connected Dominating Set, Node Weighted Steiner Tree, Maximum Induced Tree, Longest Induced Path, and Feedback Vertex Set. For all these problems, we obtain $2^{O(k)}\cdot n^{O(1)}$, $2^{O(k \log(k))}\cdot n^{O(1)}$, $2^{O(k^2)}\cdot n^{O(1)}$ and $n^{O(k)}$ time algorithms parameterized respectively by clique-width, $\mathbb{Q}$-rank-width, rank-width and maximum induced matching width. Our approach simplifies and unifies the known algorithms for each of the parameters and match asymptotically also the best time complexity for Vertex Cover and Dominating Set.

Paper available on HAL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01799573v2/document

Petri nets, also known as vector addition systems, are a long established and widely used model of concurrent processes. The complexity of their reachability problem is one of the most prominent open questions in the theory of verification. That the reachability problem is decidable was established by Mayr in his seminal STOC 1981 work, and the currently best upper bound is non-primitive recursive cubic-Ackermannian of Leroux and Schmitz from LICS 2015. We show that the reachability problem is not elementary. Until this work, the best lower bound has been exponential space, due to Lipton in 1976.

Joint work with Wojciech Czerwinski, Slawomir Lasota, Ranko Lazic, Filip Mazowiecki.