Register automata (RAs) are finite automata extended with a finite set of
registers to store and compare data from an infinite domain. We study the
concept of synchronizing data words in RAs: does there exist a data word that
sends all states of the RA to a single state?
For deterministic RAs with k registers (k-DRAs), we prove that inputting data
words with 2k+1 distinct data from the infinite data domain is sufficient to
synchronize. We show that the synchronization problem for DRAs is in general
PSPACE-complete, and it is NLOGSPACE-complete for 1-DRAs. For nondeterministic
RAs (NRAs), we show that Ackermann(n) distinct data (where n is the size of the
RA) might be necessary to synchronize. The synchronization problem for NRAs is
in general undecidable, however, we establish Ackermann-completeness of the
problem for 1-NRAs.
Another main result is the NEXPTIME-completeness of the length-bounded
synchronization problem for NRAs, where a bound on the length of the
synchronizing data word, written in binary, is given. A variant of this last
construction allows to prove that the length-bounded universality problem for
NRAs is co-NEXPTIME-complete