Constructive Many-one Reduction from the Halting Problem to Semi-unification (Extended Version)

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Dudenhefner, Andrej
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
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author Dudenhefner, Andrej
author_facet Dudenhefner, Andrej
contents Semi-unification is the combination of first-order unification and first-order matching. The undecidability of semi-unification has been proven by Kfoury, Tiuryn, and Urzyczyn in the 1990s by Turing reduction from Turing machine immortality (existence of a diverging configuration). The particular Turing reduction is intricate, uses non-computational principles, and involves various intermediate models of computation. The present work gives a constructive many-one reduction from the Turing machine halting problem to semi-unification. This establishes RE-completeness of semi-unification under many-one reductions. Computability of the reduction function, constructivity of the argument, and correctness of the argument is witnessed by an axiom-free mechanization in the Coq proof assistant. Arguably, this serves as comprehensive, precise, and surveyable evidence for the result at hand. The mechanization is incorporated into the existing, well-maintained Coq library of undecidability proofs. Notably, a variant of Hooper's argument for the undecidability of Turing machine immortality is part of the mechanization.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2208_13428
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Constructive Many-one Reduction from the Halting Problem to Semi-unification (Extended Version)
Dudenhefner, Andrej
Logic in Computer Science
Semi-unification is the combination of first-order unification and first-order matching. The undecidability of semi-unification has been proven by Kfoury, Tiuryn, and Urzyczyn in the 1990s by Turing reduction from Turing machine immortality (existence of a diverging configuration). The particular Turing reduction is intricate, uses non-computational principles, and involves various intermediate models of computation. The present work gives a constructive many-one reduction from the Turing machine halting problem to semi-unification. This establishes RE-completeness of semi-unification under many-one reductions. Computability of the reduction function, constructivity of the argument, and correctness of the argument is witnessed by an axiom-free mechanization in the Coq proof assistant. Arguably, this serves as comprehensive, precise, and surveyable evidence for the result at hand. The mechanization is incorporated into the existing, well-maintained Coq library of undecidability proofs. Notably, a variant of Hooper's argument for the undecidability of Turing machine immortality is part of the mechanization.
title Constructive Many-one Reduction from the Halting Problem to Semi-unification (Extended Version)
topic Logic in Computer Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.13428