Lower Bounds for the Complexity of Monadic Second-Order Logic

TL;DR

This paper establishes strong lower bounds on the complexity of monadic second-order logic (MSO), showing that MSO-model checking becomes intractable on certain graph classes with unbounded treewidth, contrasting the known upper bounds from Courcelle's theorem.

Contribution

It provides the first significant lower bounds for the complexity of MSO-model checking on classes of graphs with unbounded treewidth, highlighting limitations of fixed-parameter tractability.

Findings

MSO-model checking is intractable on graph classes with unbounded polylogarithmic treewidth.

The lower bounds are based on complexity-theoretic assumptions.

Contrasts with Courcelle's theorem's upper bounds for bounded treewidth classes.

Abstract

Courcelle's famous theorem from 1990 states that any property of graphs definable in monadic second-order logic (MSO) can be decided in linear time on any class of graphs of bounded treewidth, or in other words, MSO is fixed-parameter tractable in linear time on any such class of graphs. From a logical perspective, Courcelle's theorem establishes a sufficient condition, or an upper bound, for tractability of MSO-model checking. Whereas such upper bounds on the complexity of logics have received significant attention in the literature, almost nothing is known about corresponding lower bounds. In this paper we establish a strong lower bound for the complexity of monadic second-order logic. In particular, we show that if C is any class of graphs which is closed under taking subgraphs and whose treewidth is not bounded by a polylogarithmic function (in fact, $\log^c n$ for some small c suffices) then MSO-model checking is intractable on C (under a suitable assumption from complexity theory).