Temporal Constraint Satisfaction Problems in Fixed-Point Logic

Finite-domain constraint satisfaction problems are either solvable by Datalog, or not even expressible in fixed-point logic with counting. The border between the two regimes can be described by a strong height-one Maltsev condition. For infinite-domain CSPs, the situation is more complicated even if the template structure of the CSP is model-theoretically tame. We prove that there is no Maltsev condition that characterizes Datalog already for the CSPs of first-order reducts of (Q; <); such CSPs are called temporal CSPs and are of fundamental importance in infinite-domain constraint satisfaction. Our main result is a complete classification of temporal CSPs that can be expressed in one of the following logical formalisms: Datalog, fixed-point logic (with or without counting), or fixed-point logic with the Boolean rank operator. The classification shows that many of the equivalent conditions in the finite fail to capture expressibility in Datalog or fixed-point logic already for temporal CSPs.

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