Deciding Polynomial Termination Complexity for VASS Programs

Abstract

We show that for every fixed $k\ge 3$, the problem whether the termination/counter complexity of a given demonic VASS is $\mathcal{O}(n^k)$, $\Omega (n^k)$, and $\Theta (n^k)$ is coNP-complete, NP-complete, and DP-complete, respectively. We also classify the complexity of these problems for $k\le 2$. This shows that the polynomial-time algorithm designed for strongly connected demonic VASS in previous works cannot be extended to the general case. Then, we prove that the same problems for VASS games are PSPACE-complete. Again, we classify the complexity also for $k\le 2$. Interestingly, tractable subclasses of demonic VASS and VASS games are obtained by bounding certain structural parameters, which opens the way to applications in program analysis despite the presented lower complexity bounds.