True quantified Boolean formula
In computational complexity theory, the language TQBF is a formal language consisting of the true quantified Boolean formulas. A (fully) quantified Boolean formula is a formula in quantified propositional logic where every variable is quantified (or bound), using either existential or universal quantifiers, at the beginning of the sentence. Such a formula is equivalent to either true or false (since there are no free variables). If such a formula evaluates to true, then that formula is in the language TQBF. It is also known as QSAT (Quantified SAT). Overview. In computational complexity theory, the quantified Boolean  formula problem (QBF) is a generalization of the Boolean satisfiability problem in which both existential quantifiers and universal quantifiers can be applied to each variable. Put another way, it asks whether a quantified sentential form over a set of Boolean variables is true or false. For example, the following is an instance of QBF: QBF is the canonical complete problem for PSPACE, the class of problems solvable by a deterministic or nondeterministic Turing machine in polynomial space and unlimited time. Given the formula in the form of an abstract syntax tree, the problem can be solved easily by a set  of mutually recursive procedures which evaluate the formula. Such an algorithm uses space proportional to the height of the tree, which is linear in the worst case, but uses time exponential in the number of quantifiers. Provided that MA ⊊ PSPACE, which is widely believed, QBF cannot be solved, nor can a given solution even be verified, in either deterministic or probabilistic polynomial time (in fact, unlike the satisfiability problem, there's no known way to specify a solution succinctly). It can be solved using an alternating Turing machine in linear time, since AP = PSPACE, where AP is  the class of problems alternating machines can solve in polynomial time. When the seminal result IP = PSPACE was shown (see interactive proof system), it was done by exhibiting an interactive proof system that could solve QBF by solving a particular arithmetization of the problem. QBF formulas have a number of useful canonical forms. For example, it can be shown that there is a polynomial-time many-one reduction that will move all quantifiers to the front of the formula and make them alternate between universal and existential quantifiers. There is another reduction that proved useful in the IP =  PSPACE proof where no more than one universal quantifier is placed between each variable's use and the quantifier binding that variable. This was critical in limiting the number of products in certain subexpressions of the arithmetization. Prenex normal form. A fully quantified Boolean formula can be assumed to have a very specific form, called prenex normal form. It has two basic parts: a portion containing only quantifiers and a portion containing an unquantified Boolean formula usually denoted as formula_2. If there are formula_3 Boolean variables, the entire formula can be written as where every variable falls within the scope  of some quantifier. By introducing dummy variables, any formula in prenex normal form can be converted into a sentence where existential and universal quantifiers alternate. Using the dummy variable formula_5, The second sentence has the same truth value but follows the restricted syntax. Assuming fully quantified Boolean formulas to be in prenex normal form is a frequent feature of proofs. QBF solvers. Naïve. There is a simple recursive algorithm for determining whether a QBF is in TQBF (i.e. is true). Given some QBF If the formula contains no quantifiers, we can just return the formula. Otherwise, we take off the  first quantifier and check both possible values for the first variable: If formula_10, then return formula_11. If formula_12, then return formula_13. How fast does this algorithm run? For every quantifier in the initial QBF, the algorithm makes two recursive calls on only a linearly smaller subproblem. This gives the algorithm an exponential runtime O(2). How much space does this algorithm use? Within each invocation of the algorithm, it needs to store the intermediate results of computing A and B. Every recursive call takes off one quantifier, so the total recursive depth is linear in the number of quantifiers. Formulas that  lack quantifiers can be evaluated in space logarithmic in the number of variables. The initial QBF was fully quantified, so there are at least as many quantifiers as variables. Thus, this algorithm uses "O"("n" + log "n") = "O"("n") space. This makes the TQBF language part of the PSPACE complexity class. State of the art. Despite the PSPACE-completeness of QBF, many solvers have been developed to solve these instances. (This is analogous to the situation with SAT, the single existential quantifier version; even though it is NP-complete, it is still possible to solve many SAT instances heuristically.) The  case where there are only 2 quantifiers, known as 2QBF, has received special attention. The QBF solver competition QBFEVAL has been running more-or-less annually since 2004; solvers are required to read instances in QDIMACS format and either the QCIR or QAIGER formats. High-performing QBF solvers generally use QDPLL (a generalization of DPLL) or CEGAR. Research into QBF solving began with the development of backtracking DPLL for QBF in 1998, followed by the introduction of clause learning and variable elimination in 2002; thus, as compared to SAT solving, which has been under development since the 1960s, QBF is  a relatively young field of research as of 2017. Some prominent QBF solvers include: Applications. QBF solvers can be applied to planning (in artificial intelligence), including safe planning; the latter is critical in applications of robotics. QBF solvers can also be applied to bounded model checking as they provide a shorter encoding than would be needed for a SAT-based solver. The evaluation of a QBF can be seen as a two-player game between a player who controls existentially quantified variables and a player who controls universally quantified variables. This makes QBFs suitable for encoding reactive synthesis problems. Similarly , QBF solvers can be used to model adversarial games in game theory. For example, QBF solvers can be used to find winning strategies for games of geography, which can then be automatically played interactively. QBF solvers can be used for formal equivalence checking, and can also be used to synthesize Boolean functions. Other types of problems that can be encoded as QBFs include: Extensions. In QBFEVAL 2020, a "DQBF Track" was introduced where instances were allowed to have Henkin quantifiers (expressed in DQDIMACS format). PSPACE-completeness. The TQBF language serves in complexity theory as the canonical PSPACE-complete problem. Being  PSPACE-complete means that a language is in PSPACE and that the language is also PSPACE-hard. The algorithm above shows that TQBF is in PSPACE. Showing that TQBF is PSPACE-hard requires showing that any language in the complexity class PSPACE can be reduced to TQBF in polynomial time. I.e., This means that, for a PSPACE language L, whether an input is in L can be decided by checking whether formula_15 is in TQBF, for some function that is required to run in polynomial time (relative to the length of the input). Symbolically, Proving that TQBF is PSPACE-hard , requires specification of . So, suppose that L is a PSPACE language. This means that L can be decided by a polynomial space deterministic Turing machine (DTM). This is very important for the reduction of L to TQBF, because the configurations of any such Turing Machine can be represented as Boolean formulas, with Boolean variables representing the state of the machine as well as the contents of each cell on the Turing Machine tape, with the position of the Turing Machine head encoded in the formula by the formula's ordering. In particular, our reduction will use the variables formula_17 and  formula_18, which represent two possible configurations of the DTM for L, and a natural number t, in constructing a QBF formula_19 which is true if and only if the DTM for L can go from the configuration encoded in formula_17 to the configuration encoded in formula_18 in no more than t steps. The function , then, will construct from the DTM for L a QBF formula_22, where formula_23 is the DTM's starting configuration, formula_24 is the DTM's accepting configuration, and T is the maximum number of steps the DTM could need to move from one configuration to the other . We know that "T" = "O"(exp("n")), where n is the length of the input, because this bounds the total number of possible configurations of the relevant DTM. Of course, it cannot take the DTM more steps than there are possible configurations to reach formula_25 unless it enters a loop, in which case it will never reach formula_25 anyway. At this stage of the proof, we have already reduced the question of whether an input formula (encoded, of course, in formula_27) is in L to the question of whether the QBF formula_22, i.e., formula_29, is in TQBF. The remainder of  this proof proves that can be computed in polynomial time. For formula_30, computation of formula_19 is straightforward—either one of the configurations changes to the other in one step or it does not. Since the Turing Machine that our formula represents is deterministic, this presents no problem. For formula_32, computation of formula_19 involves a recursive evaluation, looking for a so-called "middle point" formula_34. In this case, we rewrite the formula as follows: This converts the question of whether formula_17 can reach formula_18 in t steps to the question of whether formula_17 reaches a middle point formula_34 in formula_40 steps , which itself reaches formula_18 in formula_40 steps. The answer to the latter question of course gives the answer to the former. Now, t is only bounded by T, which is exponential (and so not polynomial) in the length of the input. Additionally, each recursive layer virtually doubles the length of the formula. (The variable formula_34 is only one midpoint—for greater t, there are more stops along the way, so to speak.) So the time required to recursively evaluate formula_19 in this manner could be exponential as well, simply because the formula could become exponentially large. This problem is solved  by universally quantifying using variables formula_45 and formula_46 over the configuration pairs (e.g., formula_47), which prevents the length of the formula from expanding due to recursive layers. This yields the following interpretation of formula_19: This version of the formula can indeed be computed in polynomial time, since any one instance of it can be computed in polynomial time. The universally quantified ordered pair simply tells us that whichever choice of formula_50 is made, formula_51. Thus, formula_52, so TQBF is PSPACE-hard. Together with the above result that TQBF is in PSPACE, this completes the proof that TQBF is a PSPACE -complete language.