Undecidability in the Homomorphic Quasiorder of Finite Labelled Forests

Abstract

We prove that the homomorphic quasiorder of finite k-labelled forests has a hereditary undecidable first-order theory for k ≥ 3, in contrast to the known decidability result for k = 2. We establish also hereditary undecidability (again for every k ≥ 3) of first-order theories of two other relevant structures: the homomorphic quasiorder of finite k-labelled trees, and of finite k-labelled trees with a fixed label of the root element. Finally, all three first-order theories are shown to be computably isomorphic to the first-order arithmetic.