Translation from Classical Two-Way Automata to Pebble Two-Way Automata

We study the relation between the standard two-way automata and more powerful devices, namely, two-way finite automata with an additional "pebble" movable along the input tape. Similarly as in the case of the classical two-way machines, it is not known whether there exists a polynomial trade-off, in the number of states, between the nondeterministic and deterministic pebble two-way automata. However, we show that these two machine models are not independent: if there exists a polynomial trade-off for the classical two-way automata, then there must also exist a polynomial trade-off for the pebble two-way automata. Thus, we have an upward collapse (or a downward separation) from the classical two-way automata to more powerful pebble automata, still staying within the class of regular languages. The same upward collapse holds for complementation of nondeterministic two-way machines. These results are obtained by showing that each pebble machine can be, by using suitable inputs, simulated by a classical two-way automaton with a linear number of states (and vice versa), despite the existing exponential blow-up between the classical and pebble two-way machines

The Almost Equivalence by Asymptotic Probabilities for Regular Languages and Its Computational Complexities

We introduce p-equivalence by asymptotic probabilities, which is a weak almost-equivalence based on zero-one laws in finite model theory. In this paper, we consider the computational complexities of p-equivalence problems for regular languages and provide the following details. First, we give an robustness of p-equivalence and a logical characterization for p-equivalence. The characterization is useful to generate some algorithms for p-equivalence problems by coupling with standard results from descriptive complexity. Second, we give the computational complexities for the p-equivalence problems by the logical characterization. The computational complexities are the same as for the (fully) equivalence problems. Finally, we apply the proofs for p-equivalence to some generalized equivalences.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2016, arXiv:1609.0364

Detecting palindromes, patterns, and borders in regular languages

Given a language L and a nondeterministic finite automaton M, we consider whether we can determine efficiently (in the size of M) if M accepts at least one word in L, or infinitely many words. Given that M accepts at least one word in L, we consider how long a shortest word can be. The languages L that we examine include the palindromes, the non-palindromes, the k-powers, the non-k-powers, the powers, the non-powers (also called primitive words), the words matching a general pattern, the bordered words, and the unbordered words.Comment: Full version of a paper submitted to LATA 2008. This is a new version with John Loftus added as a co-author and containing new results on unbordered word