159 research outputs found
Beyond Language Equivalence on Visibly Pushdown Automata
We study (bi)simulation-like preorder/equivalence checking on the class of
visibly pushdown automata and its natural subclasses visibly BPA (Basic Process
Algebra) and visibly one-counter automata. We describe generic methods for
proving complexity upper and lower bounds for a number of studied preorders and
equivalences like simulation, completed simulation, ready simulation, 2-nested
simulation preorders/equivalences and bisimulation equivalence. Our main
results are that all the mentioned equivalences and preorders are
EXPTIME-complete on visibly pushdown automata, PSPACE-complete on visibly
one-counter automata and P-complete on visibly BPA. Our PSPACE lower bound for
visibly one-counter automata improves also the previously known DP-hardness
results for ordinary one-counter automata and one-counter nets. Finally, we
study regularity checking problems for visibly pushdown automata and show that
they can be decided in polynomial time.Comment: Final version of paper, accepted by LMC
Bisimulation Equivalence of First-Order Grammars is ACKERMANN-Complete
Checking whether two pushdown automata with restricted silent actions are
weakly bisimilar was shown decidable by S\'enizergues (1998, 2005). We provide
the first known complexity upper bound for this famous problem, in the
equivalent setting of first-order grammars. This ACKERMANN upper bound is
optimal, and we also show that strong bisimilarity is primitive-recursive when
the number of states of the automata is fixed
Bisimilarity of Pushdown Systems is Nonelementary
Given two pushdown systems, the bisimilarity problem asks whether they are
bisimilar. While this problem is known to be decidable our main result states
that it is nonelementary, improving EXPTIME-hardness, which was the previously
best known lower bound for this problem. Our lower bound result holds for
normed pushdown systems as well
On Bisimilarity of Higher-Order Pushdown Automata: Undecidability at Order Two
We show that bisimulation equivalence of order-two pushdown automata is undecidable. Moreover, we study the lower order problem of higher-order pushdown automata, which asks, given an order-k pushdown automaton and some k\u27= 2 even when the input k-PDA is deterministic and real-time
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