Descriptive complexity of real computation and probabilistic independence logic

We introduce a novel variant of BSS machines called Separate Branching BSS machines (S-BSS in short) and develop a Fagin-type logical characterisation for languages decidable in nondeterministic polynomial time by S-BSS machines. We show that NP on S-BSS machines is strictly included in NP on BSS machines and that every NP language on S-BSS machines is a countable disjoint union of closed sets in the usual topology of R n . Moreover, we establish that on Boolean inputs NP on S-BSS machines without real constants characterises a natural fragment of the complexity class ∃R (a class of problems polynomial time reducible to the true existential theory of the reals) and hence lies between NP and PSPACE. Finally we apply our results to determine the data complexity of probabilistic independence logic.