This is a course about the interplay of automata, logic and games.
Lecture: Wednesday 10:15, room 5840
Tutorial: Wednesday 12:15, same room
The automata are finite automata, but often on objects that are not necessarily finite words. The logic is usually monadic second-order logic. The point is that the automata and the logic define the same languages. The games are infinite duration games, which appear as technical tool in the analysis of automata and logics on infinite objects.
I will also use semigroups, as a third approach to defining languages.
Please submit any mistakes in the slides, or change requests, in this document.
I have updated the slides after the lecture. I have added examples, fixed some proofs and removed Muller from the lectures. The old slides can be found here.
- the subset construction for determining automata on finite words
- monadic second-order logic (MSO) on finite words
- the equivalence of MSO and automata for finite words
- satisfiability for MSO is non-elementary
A good introduction that covers this material is Sections 2 and 3 of [Tho].
Exam questions
- Define MSO, and show that every regular language of finite words is definable in MSO
- Show the opposite implication: if a language of finite words is definable in MSO, then it is regular
- monoids and semigroups
- their equivalence to automata
- Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse games
- compositionality of both first-order logic and MSO
The material of this lecture is covered in more detail in Sections 2.1 and 2.2 of [Reco].
Exam questions
- Show that finite semigroups recognise exactly the regular languages
- Show the equivalence of EF-games and first-order logic
- Show that the language (aa)* is not first-order definable
- star-free languages and their equivalence to first-order logic
- aperiodic monoids
- linear temporal logic LTL (on finite words)
- equivalence of first order logic, aperiodic monoids, and LTL
- PSPACE completeness of LTL satisfiability, via alternating automata
A discussion of first-order logic is in Section 4 of [Tho]. The translation from aperiodic to LTL is based more on Section 2.2 of [Reco].
Exam questions
In the following questions, languages of finite words are considered.
- star-free = first-order logic
- LTL ⊆ first-order logic
- first-order logic ⊆ aperiodic monoids
- aperiodic monoids ⊆ LTL
- MSO on infinite words
- Büchi automata and their necessary nondeterminism
- Semigroups for infinite words (lightweight approach)
- Equivalence of all models
The semigroup approach to Büchi automata is covered in more detail in Section 3.1 of [Reco].
Exam questions
- define Büchi automata, and show that deterministic ≠ nondeterministic
- dhow that nondetermistic Büchi = semigroups (for ω-words)
- Parity automata
- Automaton based determinization
- Semigroup based determinization
The automaton determinization is described in Chapter 1 of [Toolbox]. The semigroup determinization is based on Section 3.1 of [Reco].
Exam questions
- prove determination, using one of the two proofs; your choice
- infinite games as a tool to define semantics of alternating automata
- an example of an infinite game where none of the players wins
- memoryless determinacy of parity games
A similar proof of memoryless determinacy is in Section 6.2 of [Tho].
Exam questions
- show a game where none of the players wins
- prove memoryless determinacy of parity games
3 paths from LTL to nondeterministic Büchi- from alternating parity to nondeterministic Büchi
Exam questions
- define alternating parity automata on ω-words, and show that they are equivalent to nondeterministic ones
This lecture was not used, so there are no exam questions.
a quasi-polynomial time algorithm, using universal trees
The paper with this algorithm is by Jurdziński and Lazić.
- finite trees and logic on them
- nondeterministic automata, including bottom-up determinisation
- equivalence of mso and automata
Exam questions
- describe the three models of automata for finite trees (nondet, det bottom-up, det top-down)
- prove that MSO and automata are equivalent for finite trees
- MSO on infinite trees, and what can be expressed in this logic
Infinite trees and MSO on them are treated in Section 6 of [Tho].
Exam questions
- give two examples of decision problems that can be reduced to satisfiability of MSO on infinite trees
- parity automata on infinite trees: nondeterministic, and alternating
- from alternating parity to nondeterministic parity
- emptiness algorithm for nondeterministic parity, and regular trees
Automata on infinite trees, but without an emphasis on alternating automata are treated in Section 6 of [Tho].
Exam questions
- prove that alternating automata are equivalent to nondeterministic ones on infinite trees
- decide emptiness for nondeterministic parity automata
- LTL and PSPACE-completeness of its model checking
- modal logic
- CTL
- CTL*
- alternating automata
Exam questions
- define LTL, CTL and CTL*
- show that for languages of Kripke structures, alternating automata are bisimulation invariant
- fix-points and the μ-calculus
- model checking using a parity game
Exam questions
- define the μ-calculus and show its model checking game
- MSO on graphs, and its undecidability
- treewidth
- bounded treewidth as image of MSO transductions from trees
- model checking on bounded treewidth
- decidable satisfiability iff bounded treewidth