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2018, ArXiv
In this paper, we show that every D3-directing CNFA can be mapped uniquely to a DFA with the same synchronizing word length. This implies that Cerný’s conjecture generalizes to CNFAs and that any upper bound for the synchronizing word length of DFAs is an upper bound for the D3-directing word length of CNFAs as well. As a second consequence, for several classes of CNFAs sharper bounds are established. Finally, our results allow us to detect all critical CNFAs on at most 6 states. It turns out that only very few critical CNFAs exist.
Information Processing Letters, 2009
We show that i-directable nondeterministic automata can be i-directed with a word of length O (2 n ) for i = 1, 2, where n stands for the number of states. Since for i = 1, 2 there exist i-directable automata having i-directing words of length Ω(2 n ), these upper bounds are asymptotically optimal. We also show that a 3-directable nondeterministic automaton with n states can be 3-directed with a word of length O (n 2 • 3 √ 4 n ), improving the previously known upper bound O (2 n ). Here the best known lower bound is Ω( 3 √ 3 n ).
Jcst, 2008
A word w is called synchronizing (recurrent, reset, directable) word of deterministic finite automata (DFA) if w brings all states of the automaton to a unique state. According to the famous conjecture ofČerný from 1964, every n-state synchronizing automaton possesses a synchronizing word of length at most (n − 1) 2. The problem is still open. It will be proved that theČerný conjecture holds good for synchronizing DFA with transition monoid having no involutions and for every n-state (n > 2) synchronizing DFA with transition monoid having only trivial subgroups the minimal length of synchronizing word is not greater than (n − 1) 2 /2. The last important class of DFA involved and studied by Schȗtzenberger is called aperiodic; its automata accept precisely star-free languages. Some properties of an arbitrary synchronizing DFA were established. See
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017
It was conjectured byČerný in 1964, that a synchronizing DFA on n states always has a synchronizing word of length at most (n−1) 2 , and he gave a sequence of DFAs for which this bound is reached. Until now a full analysis of all DFAs reaching this bound was only given for n ≤ 4, and with bounds on the number of symbols for n ≤ 10. Here we give the full analysis for n ≤ 6, without bounds on the number of symbols. For PFAs on n ≤ 6 states we do a similar analysis as for DFAs and find the maximal shortest synchronizing word lengths, exceeding (n − 1) 2 for n = 4, 5, 6. For arbitrary n we use rewrite systems to construct a PFA on three symbols with exponential shortest synchronizing word length, giving significantly better bounds than earlier exponential constructions. We give a transformation of this PFA to a PFA on two symbols keeping exponential shortest synchronizing word length, yielding a better bound than applying a similar known transformation.
International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science
It was conjectured by Černý in 1964, that a synchronizing DFA on [Formula: see text] states always has a synchronizing word of length at most [Formula: see text], and he gave a sequence of DFAs for which this bound is reached. Until now a full analysis of all DFAs reaching this bound was only given for [Formula: see text], and with bounds on the number of symbols for [Formula: see text]. Here we give the full analysis for [Formula: see text], without bounds on the number of symbols. For PFAs (partial automata) on [Formula: see text] states we do a similar analysis as for DFAs and find the maximal shortest synchronizing word lengths, exceeding [Formula: see text] for [Formula: see text]. Where DFAs with long synchronization typically have very few symbols, for PFAs we observe that more symbols may increase the synchronizing word length. For PFAs on [Formula: see text] states and two symbols we investigate all occurring synchronizing word lengths. We give series of PFAs on two and thr...
Information and Computation
It was conjectured byČerný in 1964 that a synchronizing DFA on n states always has a shortest synchronizing word of length at most (n − 1) 2 , and he gave a sequence of DFAs for which this bound is reached. In this paper, we investigate the role of the alphabet size. For each possible alphabet size, we count DFAs on n ≤ 6 states which synchronize in (n − 1) 2 − e steps, for all e < 2 n/2. Furthermore, we give constructions of automata with any number of states, and 3, 4, or 5 symbols, which synchronize slowly, namely in n 2 − 3n + O(1) steps. In addition, our results proveČerný's conjecture for n ≤ 6. Our computation has led to 27 DFAs on 3, 4, 5 or 6 states, which synchronize in (n − 1) 2 steps, but do not belong toČerný's sequence. Of these 27 DFA's, 19 are new, and the remaining 8 which were already known are exactly the minimal ones: they will not synchronize any more after removing a symbol. So the 19 new DFAs are extensions of automata which were already known, including theČerný automaton on 3 states. But for n > 3, we prove that thě Cerný automaton on n states does not admit non-trivial extensions with the same smallest synchronizing word length (n − 1) 2 .
2019
We compute all synchronizing DFAs with 7 states and synchronization length >= 29. Furthermore, we compute alphabet size ranges for maximal, minimal and semi-minimal synchronizing DFAs with up to 7 states.
Automata and Computability, 2019
Deterministic finite automata are one of the simplest and most practical models of computation studied in automata theory. Their conceptual extension is the non-deterministic finite automata which also have plenty of applications. In this article, we study these models through the lens of succinct data structures where our ultimate goal is to encode these mathematical objects using information theoretically optimal number of bits along with supporting queries on them efficiently. Towards this goal, we first design a succinct data structure for representing any deterministic finite automaton D having n states over a σ-letter alphabet Σ using (σ − 1)n log n + O(n log σ) bits of space, which can determine, given an input string x over Σ, whether D accepts x optimally in time proportional to the length of x, using constant words of working space. When the input deterministic finite automaton is acyclic, we can improve the above space bound significantly to (σ − 1)(n − 1) log n + 3n + O(log 2 σ) + o(n) bits, without compromising the running time for string acceptance checking. Finally, we exhibit our succinct data structure for representing a non-deterministic finite automaton N having n states over a σ-letter alphabet Σ using σn 2 + n bits of space, such that given an input string x, we can decide whether N accepts x efficiently in polynomial time.
RAIRO - Theoretical Informatics and Applications, 2006
The paper treats the question whether there always exists a minimal nondeterministic finite automaton of n states whose equivalent minimal deterministic finite automaton has α states for any integers n and α with n ≤ α ≤ 2 n. Partial answers to this question were given by Iwama, Kambayashi, and Takaki (2000) and by Iwama, Matsuura, and Paterson (2003). In the present paper, the question is completely solved by presenting appropriate automata for all values of n and α. However, in order to give an explicit construction of the automata, we increase the input alphabet to exponential sizes. Then we prove that 2n letters would be sufficient but we describe the related automata only implicitly. In the last section, we investigate the above question for automata over binary and unary alphabets.
Information and Computation, 2011
Finite automata are probably best known for being equivalent to right-linear context-free grammars and, thus, for capturing the lowest level of the Chomsky-hierarchy, the family of regular languages. Over the last half century, a vast literature documenting the importance of deterministic, nondeterministic, and alternating finite automata as an enormously valuable concept has been developed. In the present paper, we tour a fragment of this literature. Mostly, we discuss developments relevant to finite automata related problems like, for example, (i) simulation of and by several types of finite automata, (ii) standard automata problems such as fixed and general membership, emptiness, universality, equivalence, and related problems, and (iii) minimization and approximation. We thus come across descriptional and computational complexity issues of finite automata. We do not prove these results but we merely draw attention to the big picture and some of the main ideas involved.
Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, 2013
In this paper we give the details of our new algorithm for finding minimal reset words of finite synchronizing automata. The problem is known to be computationally hard, so our algorithm is exponential in the worst case, but it is faster than the algorithms used so far and it performs well on average. The main idea is to use a bidirectional breadth-first-search and radix (Patricia) tries to store and compare subsets. A good performance is due to a number of heuristics we apply and describe here in a suitable detail. We give both theoretical and practical arguments showing that the effective branching factor is considerably reduced. As a practical test we perform an experimental study of the length of the shortest reset word for random automata with up to n = 350 states and up to k = 10 input letters. In particular, we obtain a new estimation of the expected length of the shortest reset word ≈ 2.5 √ n − 5 for binary automata and show that the error of this estimate is sufficiently small. Experiments for automata with more than two input letters show certain trends with the same general pattern.
Language and Automata Theory and Applications
It was conjectured byČerný in 1964 that a synchronizing DFA on n states always has a shortest synchronizing word of length at most (n − 1) 2 , and he gave a sequence of DFAs for which this bound is reached. In 2006 Trahtman conjectured that apart fromČerný's sequence only 8 DFAs exist attaining the bound. He gave an investigation of all DFAs up to certain size for which the bound is reached, and which do not contain other synchronizing DFAs. Here we extend this analysis in two ways: we drop this latter condition, and we drop limits on alphabet size. For n ≤ 4 we do the full analysis yielding 19 new DFAs with smallest synchronizing word length (n − 1) 2 , refuting Trahtman's conjecture. Several of these new DFAs admit more than one synchronizing word of length (n − 1) 2 , and even the synchronizing state is not unique. All these new DFAs are extensions of DFAs that were known before. For n ≥ 5 we prove that none of the DFAs in Trahtman's analysis can be extended similarly. In particular, as a main result we prove that theČerný examples Cn do not admit non-trivial extensions keeping the same smallest synchronizing word length (n − 1) 2 .
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2016
We have improved an algorithm generating synchronizing automata with a large length of the shortest reset words. This has been done by refining some known results concerning bounds on the reset length. Our improvements make possible to consider a number of conjectures and open questions concerning synchronizing automata, checking them for automata with a small number of states and discussing the results. In particular, we have verified the Černý conjecture for all binary automata with at most 12 states, and all ternary automata with at most 8 states.
Information and Computation, 2011
A synchronizing word for a given synchronizing DFA is called minimal if none of its proper factors is synchronizing. We characterize the class of synchronizing automata having only finitely many minimal synchronizing words (the class of such automata is denoted by FG).
Ural mathematical journal
We approach the problem of computing a D 2-synchronizing word of minimum length for a given nondeterministic automaton via its encoding as an instance of SAT and invoking a SAT solver. In addition, we report some of the experimental results obtained when we had tested our method on randomly generated automata and certain benchmarks.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2002
In spite of its simple formulation, the problem about the synchronization of a finite deterministic automaton is not yet properly understood. The present paper investigates this and related problems within the general framework of a composition theory for functions over a finite domain N with n elements. The notion of depth introduced in this connection is a good indication of the complexity of a given function, namely, the complexity with respect to the length of composition sequences in terms of functions belonging to a basic set. Our results show that the depth may vary considerably with the target function. We also establish criteria about the reachability of some target functions, notably constants. Properties of n such as primality or being a power of 2 turn out to be important, independently of the semantic interpretation. Most of the questions about depth, as well as about the comparison of different notions of depth, remain open. Our results show that the study of functions of several variables may shed light also to the case where all functions considered are unary.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011
A word w is called synchronizing (recurrent, reset, magic, directable) word of deterministic nite automaton (DFA) if w sends all states of the automaton to a unique state. In 1964 Jan Cerny found a sequence of n-state complete DFA possessing a minimal synchronizing word of length (n 1) 2. He conjectured that it is an upper bound on the length of such words for complete DFA. Nevertheless, the best upper bound (n 3 n)=6 was found almost 30 years ago. We reduce the upper bound on the length of the minimal synchronizing word to n(7n 2 + 6n 16)=48. An implemented algorithm for nding synchronizing word with restricted upper bound is described. The work presents the distribution of all synchronizing automata of small size according to the length of an almost minimal synchronizing word.
arXiv (Cornell University), 2018
This paper contains results which arose from the research which led to
ArXiv, 2021
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 Černý 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...
2017
A word $w$ is \emph{extending} a subset of states $S$ of a deterministic finite automaton, if the set of states mapped to $S$ by $w$ (the preimage of $S$ under the action of $w$) is larger than $S$. This notion together with its variations has particular importance in the field of synchronizing automata, where a number of methods and algorithms rely on finding (short) extending words. In this paper we study the complexity of several variants of extending word problems: deciding whether there exists an extending word, an extending word that extends to the whole set of states, a word avoiding a state, and a word that either extends or shrinks the subset. Additionally, we study the complexity of these problems when an upper bound on the length of the word is also given, and we consider the subclasses of strongly connected, synchronizing, binary, and unary automata. We show either hardness or polynomial algorithms for the considered variants.
2020
We approach the task of computing a carefully synchronizing word of optimum length for a given partial deterministic automaton, encoding the problem as an instance of SAT and invoking a SAT solver. Our experiments demonstrate that this approach gives satisfactory results for automata with up to 100 states even if very modest computational resources are used. We compare our results with the ones obtained by the first author for exact synchronization, which is another version of synchronization studied in the literature, and draw some theoretical conclusions.
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