Delta-Complete Decision Procedures for Satisfiability over the Reals

We introduce the notion of "δ-complete decision procedures" for solving SMT problems over the real numbers, with the aim of handling a wide range of nonlinear functions including transcendental functions and solutions of Lipschitz-continuous ODEs. Given an SMT problem φand a positive rational number δ, a δ-complete decision procedure determines either that φis unsatisfiable, or that the "δ-weakening" of φis satisfiable. Here, the δ-weakening of φis a variant of φthat allows δ-bounded numerical perturbations on φ. We prove the existence of δ-complete decision procedures for bounded SMT over reals with functions mentioned above. For functions in Type 2 complexity class C, under mild assumptions, the bounded δ-SMT problem is in NP^C. δ-Complete decision procedures can exploit scalable numerical methods for handling nonlinearity, and we propose to use this notion as an ideal requirement for numerically-driven decision procedures. As a concrete example, we formally analyze the DPLL<ICP> framework, which integrates Interval Constraint Propagation (ICP) in DPLL(T), and establish necessary and sufficient conditions for its δ-completeness. We discuss practical applications of δ-complete decision procedures for correctness-critical applications including formal verification and theorem proving.

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