The characterization of universally quantified visibly pushdown sets in groups

From papers

Let GG be a group. A set is universally quantified visibly pushdown, written 4VPL44\mathbf{VPL}^\forall4, if it is defined by the corresponding universal visibly pushdown language construction; let 4REG44\mathbf{REG}^\forall4 denote the class defined analogously from regular languages. The characterization conjecture. In all groups, every 4VPL44\mathbf{VPL}^\forall4 set is recognisable. Equivalently, the classes satisfy

VPL=REG.\mathbf{VPL}^\forall=\mathbf{REG}^\forall.

This would identify the universally quantified visibly pushdown sets with the recognisable sets and clarify the structure of visibly pushdown constraints over arbitrary groups. The paper states that it makes significant progress towards this claim, but provides no resolution.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Laura Ciobanu and Daniel Turaev, “Visibly Pushdown Languages in Groups”, arXiv:2604.22375 (2026).

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