The separation problem for regular languages by piecewise testable languages

Abstract: Separation is a classical problem in mathematics and computer science. It asks whether, given two sets belonging to some class, it is possible to separate them by another set of a smaller class. We present and discuss the separation problem for regular languages. We then give a direct polynomial time algorithm to check whether two given regular languages are separable by a piecewise testable language, that is, whether a $B{\Sigma}1(<)$ sentence can witness that the languages are indeed disjoint. The proof is a reformulation and a refinement of an algebraic argument already given by Almeida and the second author.