The Coq Library of Undecidability Proofs contains mechanised reductions to establish undecidability results in Coq.
The undecidability proofs are based on a synthetic approach to undecidability.
A problem P
is considered undecidable if its decidability in Coq implies the enumerability of the complement of halting problem for Turing machines (SBTM_HALT
in TM/SBTM.v
).
Since the Turing machine halting is enumerable (SBTM_HALT_enum
in TM/SBTM_enum.v
), enumerability of its complement would classically imply its decidability.
As in the traditional literature, undecidability of a problem P
in the library is often established by constructing a many-one reduction from an undecidable problem to P
.
For more information on the structure of the library, the synthetic approach, and included problems see Publications below, our Wiki, look at the slides or the recording of the talk on the Coq Library of Undecidability proofs at CoqPL '20.
The library is a collaborative effort, growing constantly and we invite everybody to contribute undecidability proofs!
The problems in the library can mostly be categorized into seed problems, advanced problems, and target problems.
Seed problems are simple to state and thus make for good starting points of undecidability proofs, often leading to easier reductions to other problems.
Advanced problems do not work well as seeds, but they highlight the potential of our library as a framework for mechanically checking pen&paper proofs of potentially hard undecidability results. Some advanced problems are proven decidable to contrast negative results.
Target problems are very expressive and thus work well as targets for reduction, with the aim of closing loops in the reduction graph to establish the inter-reducibility of problems.
- Halting problem for single-tape two-symbol Turing machines (
SBTM_HALT
inTM/SBTM.v
) - Post correspondence problem (
PCP
inPCP/PCP.v
) - Halting problem for two counters Minsky machines (
MM2_HALTING
inMinskyMachines/MM2.v
) - Halting problem for FRACTRAN programs (
FRACTRAN_REG_HALTING
inFRACTRAN/FRACTRAN.v
) - Satisfiability of elementary Diophantine constraints of the form
x = 1
,x = y + z
orx = y · z
(H10C_SAT
inDiophantineConstraints/H10C.v
) - Satisfiability of uniform Diophantine constraints of the form
x = 1 + y + z · z
(H10UC_SAT
inDiophantineConstraints/H10C.v
) - Halting problem for one counter machines (
CM1_HALT
inCounterMachines/CM1.v
) - Solvability of finite multiset constraint (
FMsetC_SAT
inSetConstraints/FMsetC.v
) - Simple semi-Thue system 01 rewriting (
SSTS01
inStringRewriting/SSTS.v
)
- Halting problem for the weak call-by-value lambda-calculus (
HaltL
inL/L.v
) - Halting problem for multi-tape Turing machines (
HaltMTM
inTM/TM.v
) - Halting problem for single-tape Turing machines (
HaltTM 1
inTM/TM.v
) - Halting problem for simple binary single-tape Turing machines (
HaltSBTM
inTM/SBTM.v
) - Halting problem for program counter based binary single-tape Turing machines (
PCTM_HALT
inTM/PCTM.v
) - Halting problem for Binary Stack Machines (
BSM_HALTING
inStackMachines/BSM.v
) - Halting problems for Minsky machines (
MM_HALTING
andMMA_HALTING n
inMinskyMachines/MM.v
) - Halting problem for partial recursive functions (
MUREC_HALTING
inMuRec/recalg.v
) - Halting problem for the weak call-by-name lambda-calculus (
wCBN
inLambdaCalculus/wCBN.v
)
An equivalence proof that most of the mentioned models of computation compute the same n
-ary functional relations over natural numbers is available in Models_Equivalent.v
.
- Provability in Minimal, Intuitionistic, and Classical First-Order Logic (
FOL*_prv_intu
,FOL_prv_intu
,FOL_prv_class
inFOL/FOL.v
), including a formulation for the minimal binary signature (FOL/binFOL.v
) - Validity in Minimal and Intuitionistic First-Order Logic (
FOL*_valid
,FOL_valid_intu
inFOL/FOL.v
) - Satisfiability in Minimal and Intuitionistic First-Order Logic (
FOL*_satis
,FOL_satis_intu
inFOL/FOL.v
) - Finite satisfiability in First-Order Logic, known as "Trakhtenbrot's theorem" (
FSAT
inFOL/FSAT.v
based onTRAKHTENBROT/red_utils.v
) - Semantic and deductive entailment in first-order ZF set-theory with (
FOL/ZF.v
) and without (FOL/minZF.v
andFOL/binZF.v
) function symbols for set operations - Semantic and deductive entailment in Peano arithmetic (
FOL/PA.v
) - Entailment in Elementary Intuitionistic Linear Logic (
EILL_PROVABILITY
inILL/EILL.v
) - Entailment in Intuitionistic Linear Logic (
ILL_PROVABILITY
inILL/ILL.v
) - Entailment in Classical Linear Logic (
CLL_cf_PROVABILITY
inILL/CLL.v
) - Entailment in Intuitionistic Multiplicative Sub-Exponential Linear Logic (
IMSELL_cf_PROVABILITY3
inILL/IMSELL.v
) - Provability in Hilbert-style calculi (
HSC_PRV
inHilbertCalculi/HSC.v
) - Recognizing axiomatizations of Hilbert-style calculi (
HSC_AX
inHilbertCalculi/HSC.v
) - Satisfiability in Separation Logic (
SLSAT
in SeparationLogic/SL.v andMSLSAT
in SeparationLogic/MSL.v) - Validity and satisfiability in Second-Order Peano Arithmetic (
SOL/PA2.v
) - Validity and satisfiability in Second-Order Logic in the empty signature (
SOL/SOL.v
)
- Acceptance problem for two counters non-deterministic Minsky machines (
ndMM2_ACCEPT
inMinskyMachines/ndMM2.v
) - String rewriting in Semi-Thue and Thue-systems (
SR
andTSR
inStringRewriting/SR.v
) - String rewriting in Post canonical systems in normal form (
PCSnf
inStringRewriting/PCSnf.v
) - Hilbert's 10th problem, i.e. solvability of a single diophantine equation (
H10
inH10/H10.v
) - Solvability of linear polynomial (over N) constraints of the form
x = 1
,x = y + z
,x = X · y
(LPolyNC_SAT
inPolynomialConstraints/LPolyNC.v
) - One counter machine halting problem (
CM1_HALT
inCounterMachines/CM1.v
) - Finite multiset constraint solvability (
FMsetC_SAT
inSetConstraints/FMsetC.v
) - Uniform boundedness of deterministic, length-preserving stack machines (
SMNdl_UB
inStackMachines/SMN.v
) - Semi-unification (
SemiU
inSemiUnification/SemiU.v
) - System F Inhabitation (
SysF_INH
inSystemF/SysF.v
), System F Typability (SysF_TYP
inSystemF/SysF.v
), System F Type Checking (SysF_TC
inSystemF/SysF.v
) - Halting problem for Krivine machines (
KrivineM_HALT
inLambdaCalculus/Krivine.v
)
- Two-counter Minsky Program Machine Halting (
MPM2_HALT
inMinskyMachines/Deciders/MPM2_HALT_dec.v
)
The definition follows exactly Minsky1 (Chapter 11, Table 11.1-1), and is different fromMM2_HALTING
inMinskyMachines/MM2.v
. - Reversible Two-counter Machine Halting (
MM2_REV_HALT
inMinskyMachines/MM2.v
) - Two-counter Machine Uniform Mortality (
MM2_UMORTAL
inMinskyMachines/MM2.v
) - Two-counter Machine Uniform Boundedness (
MM2_UBOUNDED
inMinskyMachines/MM2.v
)
- Halting problem for the call-by-value lambda-calculus (
HaltL
inL/L.v
) - Validity, provability, and satisfiability in First-Order Logic (all problems in
FOL/FOL.v
)
If you can use opam 2
on your system, you can follow the instructions here.
This installation method only works if the opam
package is already released. Make sure you have done opam update
and check the output of opam info coq-library-undecidability
to see whether a package is available. If no package is available, use one of the two methods below.
We recommend creating a fresh opam switch:
opam switch create coq-library-undecidability 4.09.1+flambda
eval $(opam env)
Then the following commands install the library:
opam repo add coq-released https://coq.inria.fr/opam/released
opam update
opam install coq-library-undecidability.1.0.1+8.16
You can use opam
to install the current state of this branch as follows.
We recommend creating a fresh opam switch:
opam switch create coq-library-undecidability --packages=ocaml-variants.4.14.0+options,ocaml-option-flambda
eval $(opam env)
Then the following commands install the library:
opam repo add coq-released https://coq.inria.fr/opam/released
opam update
opam pin add coq-library-undecidability.dev+8.16 "https://github.com/uds-psl/coq-library-undecidability.git#coq-8.16"
You need Coq 8.16
built on OCAML >= 4.09.1
, and the Template-Coq (part of MetaCoq) package for Coq. If you are using opam 2 you can use the following commands to install the dependencies on a new switch:
opam switch create coq-library-undecidability --packages=ocaml-variants.4.14.0+options,ocaml-option-flambda
eval $(opam env)
opam repo add coq-released https://coq.inria.fr/opam/released
opam update
opam install . --deps-only
make all
builds the librarymake TM/TM.vo
compiles only the filetheories/TM/TM.v
and its dependenciesmake html
generates clickable coqdoc.html
in thewebsite
subdirectorymake clean
removes all build files intheories
and.html
files in thewebsite
directory
The library is compatible with Coq's compiled interfaces (vos
) for quick infrastructural access.
make vos
builds compiled interfaces for the librarymake vok
checks correctness of the library
Be careful that this branch only compiles under Coq 8.16
. If you want to use a different Coq version you have to change to a different branch.
Due to compatibility issues, not every branch contains exactly the same problems.
We recommend to use the newest branch if possible.
A Coq Library of Undecidable Problems. Yannick Forster, Dominique Larchey-Wendling, Andrej Dudenhefner, Edith Heiter, Dominik Kirst, Fabian Kunze, Gert Smolka, Simon Spies, Dominik Wehr, Maximilian Wuttke. CoqPL '20. https://popl20.sigplan.org/details/CoqPL-2020-papers/5/A-Coq-Library-of-Undecidable-Problems
Computability in Constructive Type Theory. Yannick Forster. PhD thesis. https://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-35758
- Certified Decision Procedures for Two-Counter Machines. Andrej Dudenhefner. FSCD 2022. Subdirectory
MinskyMachines/Deciders
. https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2022/16297/ - Constructive Many-One Reduction from the Halting Problem to Semi-Unification. Andrej Dudenhefner. CSL 2022. Subdirectory
SemiUnification
. https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2022/15738/ - Undecidability, Incompleteness, and Completeness of Second-Order Logic in Coq. Mark Koch and Dominik Kirst. CPP 2022. Subdirectory
SOL
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/extras/cpp22-sol/ - A Mechanised Proof of the Time Invariance Thesis for the Weak Call-By-Value λ-Calculus. Yannick Foster, Fabian Kunze, Gert Smolka, Maximilian Wuttke. ITP 2021. Subdirectory
TM/L
. https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2021/13914/ - Synthetic Undecidability of MSELL via FRACTRAN. Dominique Larchey-Wendling. FSCD 2021. File
ILL/IMSELL.v
. Also documents the undecidability proof for 2-counters Minsky machinesMinskyMachines/MM2.v
via FRACTRAN. https://github.com/uds-psl/coq-library-undecidability/releases/tag/FSCD-2021/ - The Undecidability of System F Typability and Type Checking for Reductionists. Andrej Dudenhefner. LICS 2021. Subdirectory
SystemF
. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9470520 - Trakhtenbrot's Theorem in Coq - A Constructive Approach to Finite Model Theory. Dominik Kirst and Dominique Larchey-Wendling. IJCAR 2020. Subdirectory
TRAKTHENBROT
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/extras/fol-trakh/ - Undecidability of Semi-Unification on a Napkin. Andrej Dudenhefner. FSCD 2020. Subdirectory
SemiUnification
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/Publications/documents/Dudenhefner_2020_Semi-unification.pdf - Mechanized Undecidability Results for Propositional Calculi. TYPES 2020. Subdirectory
HilbertCalculi
. https://types2020.di.unito.it/abstracts/BookOfAbstractsTYPES2020.pdf#page=94 - Undecidability of Higher-Order Unification Formalised in Coq. Simon Spies and Yannick Forster. Technical report. Subdirectory
HOU
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/Publications/details/SpiesForster:2019:UndecidabilityHOU.html - Verified Programming of Turing Machines in Coq. Yannick Forster, Fabian Kunze, Maximilian Wuttke. Technical report. Subdirectory
TM
. https://github.com/uds-psl/tm-verification-framework/ - Hilbert's Tenth Problem in Coq. Dominique Larchey-Wendling and Yannick Forster. FSCD '19. Subdirectory
H10
. https://uds-psl.github.io/H10 - A certifying extraction with time bounds from Coq to call-by-value lambda-calculus. ITP '19. Subdirectory
L
. https://github.com/uds-psl/certifying-extraction-with-time-bounds - Certified Undecidability of Intuitionistic Linear Logic via Binary Stack Machines and Minsky Machines. Yannick Forster and Dominique Larchey-Wendling. CPP '19. Subdirectory
ILL
. http://uds-psl.github.io/ill-undecidability/ - On Synthetic Undecidability in Coq, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem. Yannick Forster, Dominik Kirst, and Gert Smolka. CPP '19. Subdirectory
FOL
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/extras/fol-undec - Formal Small-step Verification of a Call-by-value Lambda Calculus Machine. Fabian Kunze, Gert Smolka, and Yannick Forster. APLAS 2018. Subdirectory
L/AbstractMachines
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/extras/cbvlcm2/ - Towards a library of formalised undecidable problems in Coq: The undecidability of intuitionistic linear logic. Yannick Forster and Dominique Larchey-Wendling. LOLA 2018. Subdirectory
ILL
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/~forster/downloads/LOLA-2018-coq-library-undecidability.pdf - Verification of PCP-Related Computational Reductions in Coq. Yannick Forster, Edith Heiter, and Gert Smolka. ITP 2018. Subdirectory
PCP
. https://ps.uni-saarland.de/extras/PCP - Call-by-Value Lambda Calculus as a Model of Computation in Coq. Yannick Forster and Gert Smolka. Journal of Automated Reasoning (2018) Subdirectory
L
. https://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/extras/L-computability/
Fork the project on GitHub, add a new subdirectory for your project and your files, then file a pull request. We have guidelines for the directory structure of projects.
- Yannick Forster
- Dominique Larchey-Wendling
- Andrej Dudenhefner
- Edith Heiter
- Marc Hermes
- Johannes Hostert
- Dominik Kirst
- Mark Koch
- Fabian Kunze
- Gert Smolka
- Simon Spies
- Dominik Wehr
- Maximilian Wuttke
Parts of the Coq Library of Undecidability Proofs reuse generic code initially developed as a library for the lecture "Introduction to Computational Logics" at Saarland University, which was written by a subset of the above contributors, Sigurd Schneider, and Jan Christian Menz.
Footnotes
-
Minsky, Marvin Lee. Computation. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967. ↩