An Algorithm for Road Coloring

A coloring of edges of a finite directed graph turns the graph into finite-state automaton. The synchronizing word of a deterministic automaton is a word in the alphabet of colors (considered as letters) of its edges that maps the automaton to a single state. A coloring of edges of a directed graph of uniform outdegree (constant outdegree of any vertex) is synchronizing if the coloring turns the graph into a deterministic finite automaton possessing a synchronizing word. The road coloring problem is the problem of synchronizing coloring of a directed finite strongly connected graph of uniform outdegree if the greatest common divisor of the lengths of all its cycles is one. The problem posed in 1970 had evoked a noticeable interest among the specialists in the theory of graphs, automata, codes, symbolic dynamics as well as among the wide mathematical community. A polynomial time algorithm of $O(n^3)$ complexity in the most worst case and quadratic in majority of studied cases for the road coloring of the considered graph is presented below. The work is based on recent positive solution of the road coloring problem. The algorithm was implemented in the package TESTASComment: 10 page

Matrix approach to synchronizing automata

A word $w$ of letters on edges of underlying graph $\Gamma$ of deterministic finite automaton (DFA) is called synchronizing if $w$ sends all states of the automaton to a unique state. J. \v{C}erny discovered in 1964 a sequence of $n$-state complete DFA possessing a minimal synchronizing word of length $(n-1)^2$. The hypothesis, well known today as \v{C}erny conjecture, claims that $(n-1)^2$ is a precise upper bound on the length of such a word over alphabet $\Sigma$ of letters on edges of $\Gamma$ for every complete $n$-state DFA. The hypothesis was formulated distinctly in 1966 by Starke. A special classes of matrices induced by words in the alphabet of labels on edges of the underlying graph of DFA are used for the study of synchronizing automata.Comment: 19-pages.3 figures An error removed. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1405.2435, arXiv:1202.462

The road coloring problem

The synchronizing word of deterministic automaton is a word in the alphabet of colors (considered as letters) of its edges that maps the automaton to a single state. A coloring of edges of a directed graph is synchronizing if the coloring turns the graph into deterministic finite automaton possessing a synchronizing word. The road coloring problem is a problem of synchronizing coloring of directed finite strongly connected graph with constant outdegree of all its vertices if the greatest common divisor of lengths of all its cycles is one. The problem was posed by Adler, Goodwyn and Weiss over 30 years ago and evoked a noticeable interest among the specialists in theory of graphs, deterministic automata and symbolic dynamics. The problem is described even in "Wikipedia" - the popular Internet Encyclopedia. The positive solution of the road coloring problem is presented.Comment: 9 pages, correct typo

An efficient algorithm finds noticeable trends and examples concerning the \v{C}erny conjecture

A word w is called synchronizing (recurrent, reset, directed) word of a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) if w sends all states of the automaton on a unique state. Jan Cerny had found in 1964 a sequence of n-state complete DFA with shortest synchronizing word of length (n-1)^2. He had conjectured that it is an upper bound for the length of the shortest synchronizing word for any $n$-state complete DFA. The examples of DFA with shortest synchronizing word of length (n-1)^2 are relatively rare. To the Cerny sequence were added in all examples of Cerny, Piricka and Rosenauerova (1971), of Kari (2001) and of Roman (2004). By help of a program based on some effective algorithms, a wide class of automata of size less than 11 was checked. The order of the algorithm finding synchronizing word is quadratic for overwhelming majority of known to date automata. Some new examples of n-state DFA with minimal synchronizing word of length (n-1)^2 were discovered. The program recognized some remarkable trends concerning the length of the minimal synchronizing word. http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~trakht/Testas.htmlComment: MFCS06. LNCS 4162, 10 page

The length of a minimal synchronizing word and the \v{C}erny conjecture

A word w of letters on edges of underlying graph Gamma of deterministic finite automaton (DFA) is called the synchronizing word if w sends all states of the automaton to a unique state. J. \v{C}erny discovered in 1964 a sequence of n-state complete DFA possessing a minimal synchronizing word of length (n-1)^2. The hypothesis, well known today as the \v{C}erny conjecture, claims that it is also precise upper bound on the length of such a word for a complete DFA. This simple-looking conjecture is arguably the most fascinating and longstanding open problem in the combinatorial theory of finite automata. An attempt to prove the \v{C}erny conjecture is wrong.Comment: lemmas 11 is wrong. The conjecture is not proved. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1202.462

The Visualization of the Road Coloring Algorithm in the package TESTAS

A synchronizing word of a deterministic automaton is a word in the alphabet of colors of its edges that maps the automaton to a single state. A coloring of edges of a directed graph is synchronizing if the coloring turns the graph into a deterministic finite automaton possessing a synchronizing word. The road coloring problem is the problem of synchronizing coloring of a directed finite strongly connected graph with constant outdegree of all its vertices if the greatest common divisor of the lengths of all its cycles is one. A polynomial time algorithm of the road coloring has been based on recent positive solution of this old famous problem. One can use our new visualization program for demonstration of the algorithm as well as for visualization of the transition graph of any finite automaton. The visual image presents some structure properties of the transition graph. This help tool is linear in the size of the automaton.Comment: 12 page

Reducing the time complexity of testing for local threshold testability

A locally threshold testable language L is a language with the property that for some non negative integers k and l and for some word u from L, a word v belongs to L if and only if (1) the prefixes [suffixes] of length k-1 of words u and v coincide, (2) the numbers of occurrences of every factor of length k in both words u and v are either the same or greater than l-1. A deterministic finite automaton is called locally threshold testable if the automaton accepts a locally threshold testable language for some l and k. New necessary and sufficient conditions for a deterministic finite automaton to be locally threshold testable are found. On the basis of these conditions, we modify the algorithm to verify local threshold testability of the automaton and to reduce the time complexity of the algorithm. The algorithm is implemented as a part of the $C/C ^{++}$ package TESTAS. \texttt{http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/$\sim$trakht/Testas.html}.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Polynomial time algorithm for left [right] local testability

A right [left] locally testable language S is a language with the property that for some non negative integer k two words u and v in alphabet S are equal in the semi group if (1) the prefix and suffix of the words of length k coincide, (2) the set of segments of length k of the words as well as 3) the order of the first appearance of these segments in prefixes [suffixes] coincide. We present necessary and sufficient condition for graph [semi group] to be transition graph [semi group] of the deterministic finite automaton that accepts right [left] locally testable language and necessary and sufficient condition for transition graph of the deterministic finite automaton with locally idempotent semi group. We introduced polynomial time algorithms for the right [left] local testable problem for transition semi group and transition graph of the deterministic finite automaton based on these conditions. Polynomial time algorithm verifies transition graph of automaton with locally idempotent transition semi group.Comment: 10 page

Precise estimation on the order of local testability of deterministic finite automaton

A locally testable language L is a language with the property that for some non negative integer k, called the order or the level of local testable, whether or not a word u in the language L depends on (1) the prefix and the suffix of the word u of length k-1 and (2) the set of intermediate partial strings of length k of the word u. For given k the language is called k-testable. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the language of an automaton to be k-testable in the terms of the length of paths of a related graph. Some estimations of the upper and of the lower bound of testable order follow from these results. We improve the upper bound on the testable order of locally testable deterministic finite automaton with n states to n(n-2)+1 This bound is the best possible. We give an answer on the following conjecture of Kim, McNaughton and Mac-CLoskey for deterministic finite locally testable automaton with n states: \Is the local testable order of no greater than n in power 1.5 when the alphabet size is two?" Our answer is negative. In the case of size two the situation is the same as in general case.Comment: 15 page

Cerny-Starke conjecture from the sixties of XX century

A word $s$ of letters on edges of underlying graph $\Gamma$ of deterministic finite automaton (DFA) is called synchronizing if $s$ sends all states of the automaton to a unique state. J. \v{C}erny discovered in 1964 a sequence of $n$-state complete DFA possessing a minimal synchronizing word of length $(n-1)^2$. The hypothesis, mostly known today as \v{C}erny conjecture, claims that $(n-1)^2$ is a precise upper bound on the length of such a word over alphabet $\Sigma$ of letters on edges of $\Gamma$ for every complete $n$-state DFA. The hypothesis was formulated in 1966 by Starke. Algebra with nonstandard operation over special class of matrices induced by words in the alphabet of labels on edges is used to prove the conjecture. The proof is based on the connection between length of words $u$ and dimension of the space generated by solution $L_x$ of matrix equation $M_uL_x=M_s$ for synchronizing word $s$, as well as on relation between ranks of $M_u$ and $L_x$. Important role below placed the notion of pseudo inverseL matrix, sometimes reversible.Comment: 18 pages, 9 lemmas, graphs, matrices. 4 examples arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1904.07694, arXiv:1202.4626; text overlap with arXiv:1405.243