Weak Kripke Structures and LTL

We revisit the complexity of the model checking problem for formulas of linear-time temporal logic (LTL). We show that the classic PSPACE-hardness result is actually limited to a subclass of the Kripke frames, which is characterized by a simple structural condition: the model checking problem is only PSPACE-hard if there exists a strongly connected component with two distinct cycles. If no such component exists, the problem is in coNP. If, additionally, the model checking problem can be decomposed into a polynomial number of finite path checking problems, for example if the frame is a tree or a directed graph with constant depth, or the frame has an SCC graph of constant depth, then the complexity reduces further to NC.