Computability in Europe 2006
Logical Approaches to Computational Barriers

## Regular Talk: Long games with a short memory

 Speaker: Amit Shomrat Author(s): Amit Shomrat and Alexander Rabinovich Presentation: CiE06-slides-Amit Shomrat.pdf Slot: Sat, 15:10-15:30, Faraday E (col. 4)

### Abstract

Two fundamental results of automata theory are the decidability of the
Monadic second-order Logic of Order (MLO) over $\omega$
and the computability of the Church-synthesis problem over $\omega$.
In their classical paper [BL], Buchi and Landweber reduce the
Church-synthesis problem to $\omega$-length two-person games of
perfect information, where the winning condition is definable by an
MLO-formula (the so called "regular" games).
Their main theorem states:

Theorem (BL): (a) In every such game, one of the player has a
winning straegy,
(b) the winning player has a winning strategy that is definable by
a finite automaton with output, and
(c) there exists an algorithm that, given such a game (that is, a
formula defining the winning condition),
determines which of the two players has a winning strategy and
constructs a finite-automaton defining such
a strategy.
Buchi generalized the concept of an automaton to allow automata to
"work" on a countable ordinal
and used this to show that the MLO-theory of any countable ordinal is
decidable (see [BS]).

BL state that their theorem could also be generalized to all
countable ordinals. However, we show:

Theorem: The BL theorem holds for a countable ordinal  $\alpha$
iff $\alpha<\omega^\omega$.
In particular, there is a regular game of length $\omega^\omega$
in which
none of the players has a finite-state strategy.

Our proof uses both game theoretical techniques and the
"compositional method"
associated with the names of Feferman-Vaught, Shelah and others.

We will also discuss the decidability of the Churuch-synthesis
problem over a given countable ordinal
and an exact characterization of games (i.e., formulas) for which the
winning player has a finite-state strategy.

References:

[BS] J. R. Buchi, D. Siefkes, The Monadic Second-order Theory of all
Countable Ordinals, Springer Lecture Notes 328 (1973), pp. 1-126.

[BL] J. R. Buchi, L. H. Landweber, Solving Sequential Conditions by
Finite-State Strtegies, Transactions of the AMS, Vol. 138 (Apr.
1969), pp. 295-311.



 websites: Arnold Beckmann 2006-06-29