Quantifier elimination

Short description: Simplification technique in mathematical logic

Quantifier elimination is a concept of simplification used in mathematical logic, model theory, and theoretical computer science. Informally, a quantified statement "∃x such that ..." can be viewed as a question "When is there an x such that ...?", and the statement without quantifiers can be viewed as the answer to that question.[1]

One way of classifying formulas is by the amount of quantification. Formulas with less depth of quantifier alternation are thought of as being simpler, with the quantifier-free formulas as the simplest. A theory has quantifier elimination if for every formula α, there exists another formula αQF without quantifiers that is equivalent to it (modulo this theory).

## Contents

* 1 Examples
* 2 Algorithms and decidability
* 3 Related concepts
* 4 Basic ideas
* 5 Relationship with decidability
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 References

## Examples

An example from mathematics says that a single-variable quadratic polynomial has a real root if and only if its discriminant is non-negative:[1]

∃x∈ℝ.(a≠0∧ax2+bx+c=0) ⟺ a≠0∧b2−4ac≥0

Here the sentence on the left-hand side involves a quantifier ∃x∈ℝ, whereas the equivalent sentence on the right does not.

Examples of theories that have been shown decidable using quantifier elimination are Presburger arithmetic,[2][3][4][5][6][7] Skolem arithmetic,[8] algebraically closed fields, real closed fields,[9][10] atomless Boolean algebras, term algebras, dense linear orders,[9] abelian groups,[11] Rado graphs, as well as many of their combinations such as Boolean algebra with Presburger arithmetic, and term algebras with queues.

Quantifier elimination for the theory of the real numbers as an ordered additive group is Fourier–Motzkin elimination; for the theory of the field of real numbers it is the Tarski–Seidenberg theorem.[9]

Quantifier elimination can also be used to show that "combining" decidable theories leads to new decidable theories (see Feferman–Vaught theorem).

## Algorithms and decidability

If a theory has quantifier elimination, then a specific question can be addressed: Is there a method of determining αQF for each α? If there is such a method we call it a quantifier elimination algorithm. If there is such an algorithm, then decidability for the theory reduces to deciding the truth of the quantifier-free sentences. Quantifier-free sentences have no variables, so their validity in a given theory can often be computed, which enables the use of quantifier elimination algorithms to decide validity of sentences.

## Related concepts

Various model-theoretic ideas are related to quantifier elimination, and there are various equivalent conditions.

Every first-order theory with quantifier elimination is model complete. Conversely, a model-complete theory, whose theory of universal consequences has the amalgamation property, has quantifier elimination.[12]

The models of the theory of the universal consequences of a theory T are precisely the substructures of the models of T.[12] The theory of linear orders does not have quantifier elimination. However the theory of its universal consequences has the amalgamation property.

## Basic ideas

To show constructively that a theory has quantifier elimination, it suffices to show that we can eliminate an existential quantifier applied to a conjunction of literals, that is, show that each formula of the form:

∃x.⋀i=1nLi

where each Li is a literal, is equivalent to a quantifier-free formula. Indeed, suppose we know how to eliminate quantifiers from conjunctions of literals, then if F is a quantifier-free formula, we can write it in disjunctive normal form

⋁j=1m⋀i=1nLij,

and use the fact that

∃x.⋁j=1m⋀i=1nLij

is equivalent to

⋁j=1m∃x.⋀i=1nLij.

Finally, to eliminate a universal quantifier

∀x.F

where F is quantifier-free, we transform ¬F into disjunctive normal form, and use the fact that ∀x.F is equivalent to ¬∃x.¬F.

## Relationship with decidability

In early model theory, quantifier elimination was used to demonstrate that various theories possess properties like decidability and completeness. A common technique was to show first that a theory admits elimination of quantifiers and thereafter prove decidability or completeness by considering only the quantifier-free formulas. This technique can be used to show that Presburger arithmetic is decidable.

Theories could be decidable yet not admit quantifier elimination. Strictly speaking, the theory of the additive natural numbers did not admit quantifier elimination, but it was an expansion of the additive natural numbers that was shown to be decidable. Whenever a theory is decidable, and the language of its valid formulas is countable, it is possible to extend the theory with countably many relations to have quantifier elimination (for example, one can introduce, for each formula of the theory, a relation symbol that relates the free variables of the formula).[citation needed]

Example: Nullstellensatz for algebraically closed fields and for differentially closed fields.[clarification needed]

## See also

* Cylindrical algebraic decomposition
* Elimination theory
* Conjunction elimination

## Notes

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Brown 2002.
2. ↑ Presburger 1929.
3. ↑ Mind: basic Presburger arithmetic — ⟨ℕ,+,0,1⟩ — does not admit quantifier elimination. (Nipkow 2010): "Presburger arithmetic needs a divisibility (or congruence) predicate '|' to allow quantifier elimination".
4. ↑ (Grädel et al. 2007) define Presburger arithmetic as ⟨ℕ,+,<,0,1,(≡k)k>0⟩ where x≡ky iff x=y(modk). This extension does admit quantifier elimination.
5. ↑ Cooper 1972.
6. ↑ Enderton 2001, p. 188.
7. ↑ Monk 2012, p. 240.
8. ↑ Quantifier elimination for Skolem arithmetic does not hold in the bare language {×, 1, =}; the standard proof of decidability proceeds by reduction to Presburger arithmetic via the isomorphism (ℕ>0, ×) ≅ ⊕p (ℕ, +). Quantifier elimination in the strict sense requires expanding the language, for instance with divisibility predicates a ∣ x as primitives, since a ∣ x abbreviates ∃y (a·y = x) and is not quantifier-free in the original signature.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Grädel et al. 2007.
10. ↑ Fried & Jarden 2008, p. 171.
11. ↑ Szmielew 1955, Page 229 describes "the method of eliminating quantification"..
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Hodges 1993.

## References

* Brown, Christopher W. (July 31, 2002). "What is Quantifier Elimination". https://www.usna.edu/CS/qepcadweb/B/QE.html.

* Cooper, D.C. (1972). Meltzer, Bernard; Michie, Donald. eds. "Theorem Proving in Arithmetic without Multiplication". Machine Intelligence (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) 7: 91–99. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~emc/spring06/home1_files/Cooper.pdf. Retrieved 2026-03-17.

* Enderton, Herbert (2001). A mathematical introduction to logic (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-238452-3.

* Fried, Michael D.; Jarden, Moshe (2008). Field arithmetic. Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete. 3. Folge. 11 (3rd revised ed.). Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-77269-9.

* Grädel, Erich; Kolaitis, Phokion G.; Libkin, Leonid; Maarten, Marx; Spencer, Joel; Vardi, Moshe Y.; Venema, Yde; Weinstein, Scott (2007). Finite model theory and its applications. Texts in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-00428-8.

* Hodges, Wilfrid (1993). Model Theory. Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications. 42. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511551574. ISBN 9780521304429.

* Kuncak, Viktor; Rinard, Martin (2003). "Structural subtyping of non-recursive types is decidable". 18th Annual IEEE Symposium of Logic in Computer Science, 2003. Proceedings.. pp. 96–107. doi:10.1109/LICS.2003.1210049. ISBN 0-7695-1884-2. https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/110222/files/KuncakRinard03StructuralSubtypingNonRecursiveTypesDecidable.pdf.

* Monk, J. Donald (2012). Mathematical Logic (Graduate Texts in Mathematics (37)) (Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1976 ed.). Springer. ISBN 9781468494549.

* Nipkow, Tobias (2010). "Linear Quantifier Elimination". Journal of Automated Reasoning 45 (2): 189–212. doi:10.1007/s10817-010-9183-0. https://www21.in.tum.de/~nipkow/pubs/ijcar08.pdf. Retrieved 2022-11-12.

* Presburger, Mojżesz (1929). "Über die Vollständigkeit eines gewissen Systems der Arithmetik ganzer Zahlen, in welchem die Addition als einzige Operation hervortritt". Comptes Rendus du I congrès de Mathématiciens des Pays Slaves, Warszawa: 92–101. , see (Stansifer 1984) for an English translation

* Stansifer, Ryan (Sep 1984). ﻿Presburger's Article on Integer Arithmetic: Remarks and Translation﻿ (Technical Report). TR84-639. Ithaca, New York: Dept. of Computer Science, Cornell University. http://cs.fit.edu/~ryan/papers/presburger.pdf.

* Szmielew, Wanda (1955). "Elementary properties of Abelian groups". Fundamenta Mathematicae 41 (2): 203–271. doi:10.4064/fm-41-2-203-271.

* Jeannerod, Nicolas; Treinen, Ralf. "Deciding the First-Order Theory of an Algebra of Feature Trees with Updates". International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94205-6_29.

* Sturm, Thomas (2017). "A Survey of Some Methods for Real Quantifier Elimination, Decision, and Satisfiability and Their Applications". Mathematics in Computer Science 11 (3–4): 483–502. doi:10.1007/s11786-017-0319-z.

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