Characterising Fixed Parameter Tractability of Query Evaluation over Guarded TGDs

Abstract: We study the parameterized complexity of evaluating Ontology Mediated Queries (OMQs) based on Guarded TGDs (GTGDs) and Unions of Conjunctive Queries (UCQs), in the case where relational symbols have unrestricted arity and where the parameter is the size of the OMQ. We establish exact criteria for fixed-parameter tractability (fpt) evaluation of recursively enumerable classes of such OMQs (under the widely held Exponential Time Hypothesis). One of the main technical tools introduced in the paper is an fpt-reduction from deciding parameterized uniform CSPs to parameterized OMQ evaluation. The reduction preserves measures which are known to be essential for classifying recursively enumerable classes of parameterized uniform CSPs: submodular width (according to the well known result of Marx for unrestricted-arity schemas) and treewidth (according to the well known result of Grohe for bounded-arity schemas). As such, it can be employed to obtain hardness results for evaluation of recursively enumerable classes of parameterized OMQs both in the unrestricted and in the bounded arity case. Previously, in the case of bounded arity schemas, this has been tackled using a technique requiring full introspection into the construction employed by Grohe.