Concept
Courcelle's theorem
Related concepts (4)
Monadic second-order logic
In mathematical logic, monadic second-order logic (MSO) is the fragment of second-order logic where the second-order quantification is limited to quantification over sets. It is particularly important in the logic of graphs, because of Courcelle's theorem, which provides algorithms for evaluating monadic second-order formulas over graphs of bounded treewidth. It is also of fundamental importance in automata theory, where the Büchi–Elgot–Trakhtenbrot theorem gives a logical characterization of the regular languages.
Logic of graphs
In the mathematical fields of graph theory and finite model theory, the logic of graphs deals with formal specifications of graph properties using sentences of mathematical logic. There are several variations in the types of logical operation that can be used in these sentences. The first-order logic of graphs concerns sentences in which the variables and predicates concern individual vertices and edges of a graph, while monadic second-order graph logic allows quantification over sets of vertices or edges.
Cograph
In graph theory, a cograph, or complement-reducible graph, or P4-free graph, is a graph that can be generated from the single-vertex graph K1 by complementation and disjoint union. That is, the family of cographs is the smallest class of graphs that includes K1 and is closed under complementation and disjoint union. Cographs have been discovered independently by several authors since the 1970s; early references include , , , and . They have also been called D*-graphs, hereditary Dacey graphs (after the related work of James C.
Treewidth
In graph theory, the treewidth of an undirected graph is an integer number which specifies, informally, how far the graph is from being a tree. The smallest treewidth is 1; the graphs with treewidth 1 are exactly the trees and the forests. The graphs with treewidth at most 2 are the series–parallel graphs. The maximal graphs with treewidth exactly k are called k-trees, and the graphs with treewidth at most k are called partial k-trees. Many other well-studied graph families also have bounded treewidth.