A MODEL-THEORETIC CHARACTERIZATION OF MONADIC SECOND ORDER LOGIC ON INFINITE WORDS

Abstract

AbstractMonadic second order logic and linear temporal logic are two logical formalisms that can be used to describe classes of infinite words, i.e., first-order models based on the natural numbers with order, successor, and finitely many unary predicate symbols.Monadic second order logic over infinite words (S1S) can alternatively be described as a first-order logic interpreted in${\cal P}\left( \omega \right)$, the power set Boolean algebra of the natural numbers, equipped with modal operators for ‘initial’, ‘next’, and ‘future’ states. We prove that the first-order theory of this structure is the model companion of a class of algebras corresponding to a version of linear temporal logic (LTL) without until.The proof makes crucial use of two classical, nontrivial results from the literature, namely the completeness of LTL with respect to the natural numbers, and the correspondence between S1S-formulas and Büchi automata.