Temporal Valued Constraint Satisfaction Problems

We study the computational complexity of the valued constraint satisfaction problem (VCSP) for every valued structure over ℚ that is preserved by all order-preserving bijections. Such VCSPs will be called temporal, in analogy to the (classical) constraint satisfaction problem: a relational structure is preserved by all order-preserving bijections if and only if all its relations have a first-order definition in (ℚ; <), and the CSPs for such structures are called temporal CSPs. Many optimization problems that have been studied intensively in the literature can be phrased as a temporal VCSP. We prove that a temporal VCSP is in P, or NP-complete. Our analysis uses the concept of fractional polymorphisms. This is the first dichotomy result for VCSPs over infinite domains which is complete in the sense that it treats all valued structures that contain a given automorphism group.

Authors

• Manuel Bodirsky
• Édouard Bonnet
• Zaneta Semanisinová

Keywords

• Constraint Satisfaction Problems
• valued CSPs
• temporal CSPs
• fractional polymorphisms
• complexity dichotomy
• min CSPs