Unprovability of the Logical Characterization of Bisimulation

We quickly review labelled Markov processes (LMP) and provide a counterexample showing that in general measurable spaces, event bisimilarity and state bisimilarity differ in LMP. This shows that the logic in Desharnais [*] does not characterize state bisimulation in non-analytic measurable spaces. Furthermore we show that, under current foundations of Mathematics, such logical characterization is unprovable for spaces that are projections of a coanalytic set. Underlying this construction there is a proof that stationary Markov processes over general measurable spaces do not have semi-pullbacks. ([*] J. Desharnais, Labelled Markov Processes. School of Computer Science. McGill University, Montr\'eal (1999))Comment: Extended introduction and comments; extra section on semi-pullbacks; 11 pages Some background details added; extra example on the non-locality of state bisimilarity; 14 page

Bisimilarity is not Borel

We prove that the relation of bisimilarity between countable labelled transition systems is $\Sigma_1^1$-complete (hence not Borel), by reducing the set of non-wellorders over the natural numbers continuously to it. This has an impact on the theory of probabilistic and nondeterministic processes over uncountable spaces, since logical characterizations of bisimilarity (as, for instance, those based on the unique structure theorem for analytic spaces) require a countable logic whose formulas have measurable semantics. Our reduction shows that such a logic does not exist in the case of image-infinite processes.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure; proof of Sigma_1^1 completeness added with extended comments. I acknowledge careful reading by the referees. Major changes in Introduction, Conclusion, and motivation for NLMP. Proof for Lemma 22 added, simpler proofs for Lemma 17 and Theorem 30. Added references. Part of this work was presented at Dagstuhl Seminar 12411 on Coalgebraic Logic

Semipullbacks of labelled Markov processes

A labelled Markov process (LMP) consists of a measurable space $S$ together with an indexed family of Markov kernels from $S$ to itself. This structure has been used to model probabilistic computations in Computer Science, and one of the main problems in the area is to define and decide whether two LMP $S$ and $S'$ "behave the same". There are two natural categorical definitions of sameness of behavior: $S$ and $S'$ are bisimilar if there exist an LMP $T$ and measure preserving maps forming a diagram of the shape $S\leftarrow T \rightarrow{S'}$; and they are behaviorally equivalent if there exist some $U$ and maps forming a dual diagram $S\rightarrow U \leftarrow{S'}$. These two notions differ for general measurable spaces but Doberkat (extending a result by Edalat) proved that they coincide for analytic Borel spaces, showing that from every diagram $S\rightarrow U \leftarrow{S'}$ one can obtain a bisimilarity diagram as above. Moreover, the resulting square of measure preserving maps is commutative (a "semipullback"). In this paper, we extend the previous result to measurable spaces $S$ isomorphic to a universally measurable subset of a Polish space with the trace of the Borel $\sigma$-algebra, using a version of Strassen's theorem on common extensions of finitely additive measures.Comment: 10 pages; v2: missing attribution to Doberka

On curves with one place at infinity

Let $f$ be a plane curve. We give a procedure based on Abhyankar's approximate roots to detect if it has a single place at infinity, and if so construct its associated $\delta$-sequence, and consequently its value semigroup. Also for fixed genus (equivalently Frobenius number) we construct all $\delta$-sequences generating numerical semigroups with this given genus. For a $\delta$-sequence we present a procedure to construct all curves having this associated sequence. We also study the embeddings of such curves in the plane. In particular, we prove that polynomial curves might not have a unique embedding.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure