A Dichotomy Theorem for Constraints on a Three-Element Set

The Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) provides a common framework for many combinatorial problems. The general CSP is known to be NP-complete; however, certain restrictions on the possible form of constraints may affect the complexity, and lead to tractable problem classes. There is, therefore, a fundamental research direction, aiming to separate those subclasses of the CSP which are tractable, from those which remain NP-complete. In 1978 Schaefer gave an exhaustive solution of this problem for the CSP on a 2-element domain. In this paper we generalise this result to a classification of the complexity of CSPs on a 3-element domain. The main result states that every subclass of the CSP defined by a set of allowed constraints is either tractable or NP-complete, and the criterion separating them is that conjectured in [6, 8]. We also exhibit a polynomial time algorithm which, for a given set of allowed constraints, determines whether if this set gives rise to a tractable problem cl...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: FOCS
• Authors: Andrei A. Bulatov
• Keywords: Constraint Satisfaction Problem, FOCS 2002, General Csp, Theoretical Computer Science, Tractable Problem