We show that the class of chordal claw-free graphs admits LREC$_=$-definable canonization. LREC$_=$ is a logic that extends first-order logic with counting by an operator that allows it to formalize a limited form of recursion. This operator can be evaluated in logarithmic space. It follows that there exists a logarithmic-space canonization algorithm, and therefore a logarithmic-space isomorphism test, for the class of chordal claw-free graphs. As a further consequence, LREC$_=$ captures logarithmic space on this graph class. Since LREC$_=$ is contained in fixed-point logic with counting, we also obtain that fixed-point logic with counting captures polynomial time on the class of chordal claw-free graphs. Comment: 34 pages, 13 figures

We show that the class of chordal claw-free graphs admits LREC=-definable canonization. LREC= is a logic that extends first-order logic with counting by an operator that allows it to formalize a limited form of recursion. This operator can be evaluated in logarithmic space. It follows that there exists a logarithmic-space canonization algorithm for the class of chordal claw-free graphs, and that LREC= captures logarithmic space on this graph class. Since LREC= is contained in fixed-point logic with counting, we also obtain that fixed-point logic with counting captures polynomial time on the class of chordal claw-free graphs.

The question of whether there is a logic that captures polynomial time is one of the main open problems in descriptive complexity theory and database theory. In 2010 Grohe showed that fixed point logic with counting captures polynomial time on all classes of graphs with excluded minors. We now consider classes of graphs with excluded induced subgraphs. For such graph classes, an effective graph decomposition, called modular decomposition, was introduced by Gallai in 1976. The graphs that are non-decomposable with respect to modular decomposition are called prime. We present a tool, the Modular Decomposition Theorem, that reduces (definable) canonization of a graph class C to (definable) canonization of the class of prime graphs of C that are colored with binary relations on a linearly ordered set. By an application of the Modular Decomposition Theorem, we show that fixed point logic with counting also captures polynomial time on the class of permutation graphs. As a side effect of the Modular Decomposition Theorem, we further obtain that the modular decomposition tree is computable in logarithmic space. It follows that cograph recognition and cograph canonization is computable in logarithmic space.

A natural and established way to restrict the constraint satisfaction problem is to fix the relations that can be used to pose constraints; such a family of relations is called a constraint language.In this article, we study arc consistency, a heavily investigated inference method, and three extensions thereof from the perspective of constraint languages.We conduct a comparison of the studied methods on the basis of which constraint languages they solve, and we present new polynomial-time tractability results for singleton arc consistency, the most powerful method studied.