The alternating bridge at one block: ATMAccept 1 true is NP-complete #
The base case of the machine bridge for the polynomial hierarchy, and the
sanity check on the alternating model: at k = 1 the only block is 0, its
polarity is the starting one, so for start = true no state is universal and
DescriptiveComplexity.ATMData.AltAccepts is
DescriptiveComplexity.TMData.Accepts
(DescriptiveComplexity.ATMData.altAccepts_true_iff_accepts). The alternating
problem is therefore the same problem as DescriptiveComplexity.NTMAccept, up
to the mark – and up to the mark is exactly what a reduction is for.
Both directions are identity interpretations – one dimension, one tag – in the
style of DescriptiveComplexity.DetToNondet.detInterp:
DescriptiveComplexity.MarkOne.markInterpcopies a machine and marks every element as a state of block0, so the promiseDescriptiveComplexity.ATMData.BlocksWellFormedholds in the image by construction;DescriptiveComplexity.ForgetOne.forgetInterpcopies an alternating machine and forgets the mark, keeping the accepting states only when the promise holds in the source – the guard trick again, so that an instance failing the promise becomes a no-instance rather than a machine that might accept.
Together they make ATMAccept 1 true NP-complete: membership travels backwards
along forgetInterp, hardness forwards along markInterp. Nothing here is
specific to one block except the two k = 1 facts of
DescriptiveComplexity.Problems.Machine.AltDefs; the general bridge replaces
them by the collapse lemmas of DescriptiveComplexity.MachinesAltPlay.
Marking a machine: NTMAccept ≤ᶠᵒ ATMAccept 1 true #
The identity interpretation that marks every element. Every symbol of the machine vocabulary is copied, and the single block mark holds of everything, so the interpreted instance carries a well-formed block structure.
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The universe of the image is the universe of the source.
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Every element of the image is a state of block 0.
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A marked machine is the machine it was built from.
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The reduction is correct: marking every element changes nothing, since at one existential block the alternating semantics is the nondeterministic one.
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Machine acceptance reduces to alternating acceptance at one block: mark every element as a state of the single block.
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Forgetting the mark: ATMAccept 1 true ≤ᶠᵒ NTMAccept #
The promise of DescriptiveComplexity.ATMAccept at one block – every
element is marked – as a first-order formula whose free variables are unused:
the guard the image puts on its accepting states.
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The identity interpretation that forgets the mark, with a guarded accepting predicate.
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The universe of the image is the universe of the source.
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The accepting states of the image are guarded: an element is accepting there exactly when the source carries its promise and it is accepting in the source.
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An instance carrying its promise is copied verbatim.
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An instance failing its promise has no accepting state in the image.
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The reduction is correct: forgetting the mark is harmless on instances that carry the promise, and the guard turns the others into no-instances.
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Alternating acceptance at one block reduces to machine acceptance: forget the mark, keeping the accepting states only when the promise holds.
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The bridge at one block #
Alternating acceptance at one existential block is in NP.
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Alternating acceptance at one existential block is NP-hard.