Reachability in pushdown vector addition systems with states (PVASS) is among the longest standing open problems in Theoretical Computer Science. We show that the problem is decidable in full generality. Our decision procedure is similar in spirit to the KLMST algorithm for VASS reachability, but works over objects that support an elaborate form of procedure summarization as known from pushdown reachability.

The omega-regular separability problem for Büchi VASS coverability languages has recently been shown to be decidable, but with an EXPSPACE lower and a non-primitive recursive upper bound -- the exact complexity remained open. We close this gap and show that the problem is EXPSPACE-complete. A careful analysis of our complexity bounds additionally yields a PSPACE procedure in the case of fixed dimension >= 1, which matches a pre-established lower bound of PSPACE for one dimensional Büchi VASS. Our algorithm is a non-deterministic search for a witness whose size, as we show, can be suitably bounded. Part of the procedure is to decide the existence of runs in VASS that satisfy certain non-linear properties. Therefore, a key technical ingredient is to analyze a class of systems of inequalities where one variable may occur in non-linear (polynomial) expressions. These so-called singly non-linear systems (SNLS) take the form A(x).y >= b(x), where A(x) and b(x) are a matrix resp. a vector whose entries are polynomials in x, and y ranges over vectors in the rationals. Our main contribution on SNLS is an exponential upper bound on the size of rational solutions to singly non-linear systems. The proof consists of three steps. First, we give a tailor-made quantifier elimination to characterize all real solutions to x. Second, using the root separation theorem about the distance of real roots of polynomials, we show that if a rational solution exists, then there is one with at most polynomially many bits. Third, we insert the solution for x into the SNLS, making it linear and allowing us to invoke standard solution bounds from convex geometry. Finally, we combine the results about SNLS with several techniques from the area of VASS to devise an EXPSPACE decision procedure for omega-regular separability of Büchi VASS.

We show that the regular separability problem of VASS reachability languages is decidable and Fω-complete. At the heart of our decision procedure are doubly-marked graph transition sequences, a new proof object that tracks a suitable product of the VASS we wish to separate. We give a decomposition algorithm for DMGTS that not only achieves perfectness as known from MGTS, but also a new property called faithfulness. Faithfulness allows us to construct, from a regular separator for the Z-versions of the VASS, a regular separator for the N-versions. Behind faithfulness is the insight that, for separability, it is sufficient to track the counters of one VASS modulo a large number that is determined by the decomposition.

There is a recent separability result for the languages of well-structured transition systems (WSTS) that is surprisingly general: disjoint WSTS languages are always separated by a regular language. The result assumes that one of the languages is accepted by a deterministic WSTS, and it is not known whether this assumption is needed. There are two ways to get rid of the assumption, none of which has led to conclusions so far: (i) show that WSTS can be determinized or (ii) generalize the separability result to non-deterministic WSTS languages. Our contribution is to show that (i) does not work but (ii) does. As for (i), we give a non-deterministic WSTS language that we prove cannot be accepted by a deterministic WSTS. The proof relies on a novel characterization of the languages accepted by deterministic WSTS. As for (ii), we show how to find finitely represented inductive invariants without having the tool of ideal decompositions at hand. Instead, we work with closures under converging sequences. Our results hold for upward- and downward-compatible WSTS.