Upper and lower bounds for first order expressibility

AbstractWe study first order expressibility as a measure of complexity. We introduce the new class Var&Sz[v(n),z(n)] of languages expressible by a uniform sequence of sentences with v(n) variables and size O[z(n)]. When v(n) is constant our uniformity condition is syntactical and thus the following characterizations of P and PSPACE come entirely from logic. NSPACE|log n|⊆⋃k=1,2,…Var&Sz|k, log(n)|⊆DSPACE|log2(n)|,P=⋃k=1,2,…Var&Sz|k, nk|,PSPACE=⋃k=1,2,…Var&Sz|k, 2nk|. The above means, for example, that the properties expressible with constantly many variables in polynomial size sentences are just the polynomial time recognizable properties. These results hold for languages with an ordering relation, e.g., for graphs the vertices are numbered. We introduce an “alternating pebbling game” to prove lower bounds on the number of variables and size needed to express properties without the ordering. We show, for example, that k variables are needed to express Clique(k), suggesting that this problem requires DTIME[nk]