Cayley structures and common knowledge

Abstract: We investigate multi-agent epistemic modal logic with common knowledge modalities for groups of agents and obtain van Benthem style model-theoretic characterisations, in terms of bisimulation invariance of classical first-order logic over the non-elementary classes of (finite or arbitrary) common knowledge Kripke frames. The technical challenges posed by the reachability and transitive closure features of the derived accessibility relations are dealt with through passage to (finite) bisimilar coverings of epistemic frames by Cayley graphs of permutation groups whose generators are associated with the agents. Epistemic frame structure is here induced by an algebraic coset structure. Cayley structures with specific acyclicity properties support a locality analysis at different levels of granularity as induced by distance measures w.r.t. various coalitions of agents.