Logical Characterizations of Bounded Query Classes I: Logspace Oracle Machines

Abstract

We consider three sub-logics of the logic (±HP)*[FOs] and show that these sub-logics capture the complexity classes obtained by considering logspace deterministic oracle Turing machines with oracles in NP where the number of oracle calls is unrestricted and constant, respectively; that is, the classes LNP and LNP[O(1)]. We conclude that if certain logics are of the same expressibility then the Polynomial Hierarchy collapses. We also exhibit some new complete problems for the complexity class LNP via projection translations (the first to be discovered: projection translations are extremely weak logical reductions between problems) and characterize the complexity class LNP[O(1)] as the closure of NP under a new, extremely strict truth-table reduction (which we introduce in this paper).