18 research outputs found
Preimage problems for deterministic finite automata
Given a subset of states of a deterministic finite automaton and a word
, the preimage is the subset of all states mapped to a state in by the
action of . We study three natural problems concerning words giving certain
preimages. The first problem is whether, for a given subset, there exists a
word \emph{extending} the subset (giving a larger preimage). The second problem
is whether there exists a \emph{totally extending} word (giving the whole set
of states as a preimage)---equivalently, whether there exists an
\emph{avoiding} word for the complementary subset. The third problem is whether
there exists a \emph{resizing} word. We also consider variants where the length
of the word is upper bounded, where the size of the given subset is restricted,
and where the automaton is strongly connected, synchronizing, or binary. We
conclude with a summary of the complexities in all combinations of the cases
Complexity of Preimage Problems for Deterministic Finite Automata
Given a subset of states S of a deterministic finite automaton and a word w, the preimage is the subset of all states that are mapped to a state from S by the action of w. We study the computational complexity of three problems related to the existence of words yielding certain preimages, which are especially motivated by the theory of synchronizing automata. The first problem is whether, for a given subset, there exists a word extending the subset (giving a larger preimage). The second problem is whether there exists a word totally extending the subset (giving the whole set of states) - it is equivalent to the problem whether there exists an avoiding word for the complementary subset. The third problem is whether there exists a word resizing the subset (giving a preimage of a different size). We also consider the variants of the problem where an upper bound on the length of the word is given in the input. Because in most cases our problems are computationally hard, we additionally consider parametrized complexity by the size of the given subset. We focus on the most interesting cases that are the subclasses of strongly connected, synchronizing, and binary automata
A quadratic upper bound on the size of a synchronizing word in one-cluster automata
International audienceČerný's conjecture asserts the existence of a synchronizing word of length at most (n-1)² for any synchronized n-state deterministic automaton. We prove a quadratic upper bound on the length of a synchronizing word for any synchronized n-state deterministic automaton satisfying the following additional property: there is a letter a such that for any pair of states p, q, one has p*ar = q*as for some integers r, s (for a state p and a word w, we denote by p*w the state reached from p by the path labeled w). As a consequence, we show that for any finite synchronized prefix code with an n-state decoder, there is a synchronizing word of length O(n²). This applies in particular to Huffman codes
Synchronizing Strongly Connected Partial DFAs
We study synchronizing partial DFAs, which extend the classical concept of
synchronizing complete DFAs and are a special case of synchronizing unambiguous
NFAs. A partial DFA is called synchronizing if it has a word (called a reset
word) whose action brings a non-empty subset of states to a unique state and is
undefined for all other states. While in the general case the problem of
checking whether a partial DFA is synchronizing is PSPACE-complete, we show
that in the strongly connected case this problem can be efficiently reduced to
the same problem for a complete DFA. Using combinatorial, algebraic, and formal
languages methods, we develop techniques that relate main synchronization
problems for strongly connected partial DFAs with the same problems for
complete DFAs. In particular, this includes the \v{C}ern\'{y} and the rank
conjectures, the problem of finding a reset word, and upper bounds on the
length of the shortest reset words of literal automata of finite prefix codes.
We conclude that solving fundamental synchronization problems is equally hard
in both models, as an essential improvement of the results for one model
implies an improvement for the other.Comment: Full version of the paper at STACS 202