752 research outputs found
Regular Separability of Parikh Automata
We investigate a subclass of languages recognized by vector addition systems, namely languages of nondeterministic Parikh automata. While the regularity problem (is the language of a given automaton regular?) is undecidable for this model, we surprisingly show decidability of the regular separability problem: given two Parikh automata, is there a regular language that contains one of them and is disjoint from the other? We supplement this result by proving undecidability of the same problem already for languages of visibly one counter automata
A Characterization for Decidable Separability by Piecewise Testable Languages
The separability problem for word languages of a class by
languages of a class asks, for two given languages and
from , whether there exists a language from that
includes and excludes , that is, and . In this work, we assume some mild closure properties for
and study for which such classes separability by a piecewise
testable language (PTL) is decidable. We characterize these classes in terms of
decidability of (two variants of) an unboundedness problem. From this, we
deduce that separability by PTL is decidable for a number of language classes,
such as the context-free languages and languages of labeled vector addition
systems. Furthermore, it follows that separability by PTL is decidable if and
only if one can compute for any language of the class its downward closure wrt.
the scattered substring ordering (i.e., if the set of scattered substrings of
any language of the class is effectively regular).
The obtained decidability results contrast some undecidability results. In
fact, for all (non-regular) language classes that we present as examples with
decidable separability, it is undecidable whether a given language is a PTL
itself.
Our characterization involves a result of independent interest, which states
that for any kind of languages and , non-separability by PTL is
equivalent to the existence of common patterns in and
Quantum Pushdown Automata
Quantum finite automata, as well as quantum pushdown automata (QPA) were
first introduced by C. Moore and J. P. Crutchfield. In this paper we introduce
the notion of QPA in a non-equivalent way, including unitarity criteria, by
using the definition of quantum finite automata of Kondacs and Watrous. It is
established that the unitarity criteria of QPA are not equivalent to the
corresponding unitarity criteria of quantum Turing machines. We show that QPA
can recognize every regular language. Finally we present some simple languages
recognized by QPA, not recognizable by deterministic pushdown automata.Comment: Conference SOFSEM 2000, extended version of the pape
Regular Separability and Intersection Emptiness Are Independent Problems
The problem of regular separability asks, given two languages K and L, whether there exists a regular language S that includes K and is disjoint from L. This problem becomes interesting when the input languages K and L are drawn from language classes beyond the regular languages. For such classes, a mild and useful assumption is that they are full trios, i.e. closed under rational transductions.
All the results on regular separability for full trios obtained so far exhibited a noteworthy correspondence with the intersection emptiness problem: In each case, regular separability is decidable if and only if intersection emptiness is decidable. This raises the question whether for full trios, regular separability can be reduced to intersection emptiness or vice-versa.
We present counterexamples showing that neither of the two problems can be reduced to the other. More specifically, we describe full trios C_1, D_1, C_2, D_2 such that (i) intersection emptiness is decidable for C_1 and D_1, but regular separability is undecidable for C_1 and D_1 and (ii) regular separability is decidable for C_2 and D_2, but intersection emptiness is undecidable for C_2 and D_2
The Diagonal Problem for Higher-Order Recursion Schemes is Decidable
A non-deterministic recursion scheme recognizes a language of finite trees.
This very expressive model can simulate, among others, higher-order pushdown
automata with collapse. We show decidability of the diagonal problem for
schemes. This result has several interesting consequences. In particular, it
gives an algorithm that computes the downward closure of languages of words
recognized by schemes. In turn, this has immediate application to separability
problems and reachability analysis of concurrent systems.Comment: technical report; to appear in LICS'1
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