Tractable Combinations of Temporal CSPs

Abstract

The constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) of a first-order theory T is the computational problem of deciding whether a given conjunction of atomic formulas is satisfiable in some model of T. We study the computational complexity of CSP$(T_1 \cup T_2)$ where $T_1$ and $T_2$ are theories with disjoint finite relational signatures. We prove that if $T_1$ and $T_2$ are the theories of temporal structures, i.e., structures where all relations have a first-order definition in $(Q;<)$, then CSP$(T_1 \cup T_2)$ is in P or NP-complete. To this end we prove a purely algebraic statement about the structure of the lattice of locally closed clones over the domain $Q$ that contain Aut$(Q;<)$.