Roots and Powers in Regular Languages: Recognizing Nonregular Properties by Finite Automata

Author:

Frei Fabian1,Hromkovič Juraj1,Karhumäki Juhani2

Affiliation:

1. Department of Computer Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland. fabian.frei@inf.ethz.ch, juraj.hromkovic@inf.ethz.ch

2. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Turku, Turku, Finland. karhumak@utu.fi

Abstract

It is well known that the set of powers of any given order, for example squares, in a regular language need not be regular. Nevertheless, finite automata can identify them via their roots. More precisely, we recall that, given a regular language L, the set of square roots of L is regular. The same holds true for the nth roots for any n and for the set of all nontrivial roots; we give a concrete construction for all of them. Using the above result, we obtain decision algorithms for many natural problems on powers. For example, it is decidable, given two regular languages, whether they contain the same number of squares at each length. Finally, we give an exponential lower bound on the size of automata identifying powers in regular languages. Moreover, we highlight interesting behavior differences between taking fractional powers of regular languages and taking prefixes of a fractional length. Indeed, fractional roots in a regular language can typically not be identified by finite automata.

Publisher

IOS Press

Subject

Computational Theory and Mathematics,Information Systems,Algebra and Number Theory,Theoretical Computer Science

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3