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Main Authors: Pilipczuk, Michał, Schmitz, Sylvain, Sinclair-Banks, Henry
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19212
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author Pilipczuk, Michał
Schmitz, Sylvain
Sinclair-Banks, Henry
author_facet Pilipczuk, Michał
Schmitz, Sylvain
Sinclair-Banks, Henry
contents We investigate the parameterised complexity of the classic coverability problem for vector addition systems (VAS): given a finite set of vectors $V \subseteq\mathbb{Z}^d$, an initial configuration $s\in\mathbb{N}^d$, and a target configuration $t\in\mathbb{N}^d$, decide whether starting from $s$, one can iteratively add vectors from $V$ to ultimately arrive at a configuration that is larger than or equal to $t$ on every coordinate, while not observing any negative value on any coordinate along the way. We consider two natural parameters for the problem: the dimension $d$ and the size of $V$, defined as the total bitsize of its encoding. We present several results charting the complexity of those two parameterisations, among which the highlight is that coverability for VAS parameterised by the dimension and with all the numbers in the input encoded in unary is complete for the class XNL under PL-reductions. We also discuss open problems in the topic, most notably the question about fixed-parameter tractability for the parameterisation by the size of $V$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_19212
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Note on the Parameterised Complexity of Coverability in Vector Addition Systems
Pilipczuk, Michał
Schmitz, Sylvain
Sinclair-Banks, Henry
Computational Complexity
Logic in Computer Science
F.2.2; D.2.4
We investigate the parameterised complexity of the classic coverability problem for vector addition systems (VAS): given a finite set of vectors $V \subseteq\mathbb{Z}^d$, an initial configuration $s\in\mathbb{N}^d$, and a target configuration $t\in\mathbb{N}^d$, decide whether starting from $s$, one can iteratively add vectors from $V$ to ultimately arrive at a configuration that is larger than or equal to $t$ on every coordinate, while not observing any negative value on any coordinate along the way. We consider two natural parameters for the problem: the dimension $d$ and the size of $V$, defined as the total bitsize of its encoding. We present several results charting the complexity of those two parameterisations, among which the highlight is that coverability for VAS parameterised by the dimension and with all the numbers in the input encoded in unary is complete for the class XNL under PL-reductions. We also discuss open problems in the topic, most notably the question about fixed-parameter tractability for the parameterisation by the size of $V$.
title A Note on the Parameterised Complexity of Coverability in Vector Addition Systems
topic Computational Complexity
Logic in Computer Science
F.2.2; D.2.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19212