Rational word languages can be defined by several equivalent means: finite
state automata, rational expressions, finite congruences, or monadic
second-order (MSO) logic. The robust subclass of aperiodic languages is defined
by: counter-free automata, star-free expressions, aperiodic (finite)
congruences, or first-order (FO) logic. In particular, their algebraic
characterization by aperiodic congruences allows to decide whether a regular
language is aperiodic.
We lift this decidability result to rational transductions, i.e.,
word-to-word functions defined by finite state transducers. In this context,
logical and algebraic characterizations have also been proposed. Our main
result is that one can decide if a rational transduction (given as a
transducer) is in a given decidable congruence class. We also establish a
transfer result from logic-algebra equivalences over languages to equivalences
over transductions. As a consequence, it is decidable if a rational
transduction is first-order definable, and we show that this problem is
PSPACE-complete
