arXiv subjects

Christof Löding

Publications and source records attributed to Christof Löding.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Minimal History-Deterministic Co-Büchi Automata: Congruences and Passive Learning

Abu Radi and Kupferman (2019) demonstrated the efficient minimization of history-deterministic (transition-based) co-Büchi automata, building on the results of Kuperberg and Skrzypczak (2015). We give a congruence-based description of these minimal automata, and a self-contained proof of its correctness. We use this description based on congruences to create a passive learning algorithm that can learn minimal history-deterministic co-Büchi automata from a set of labeled example words. The algorithm runs in polynomial time on a given set of examples, and there is a characteristic set of examples of polynomial size for each minimal history-deterministic co-Büchi automaton.

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arXiv2026

Layered automata: A canonical model for automata over infinite words

We introduce layered automata, a subclass of alternating parity automata that generalises deterministic automata. Assuming a consistency property, these automata are history deterministic and 0-1 probabilistic. We show that every omega-regular language is recognised by a unique minimal consistent layered automaton, and that this canonical form can be computed in polynomial time from every layered or deterministic automaton. We further establish that for layered automata both consistency checking and inclusion testing can be performed in polynomial time. Much like deterministic finite automata, minimal consistent layered automata admit a characterisation based on congruences.

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arXiv2025

A Hyperlogic for Strategies in Stochastic Games (Extended Version)

We propose a probabilistic hyperlogic called HyperSt$^2$ that can express hyperproperties of strategies in turn-based stochastic games. To the best of our knowledge, HyperSt$^2$ is the first hyperlogic for stochastic games. HyperSt$^2$ can relate probabilities of several independent executions of strategies in a stochastic game. For example, in HyperSt$^2$ it is natural to formalize optimality, i.e., to express that some strategy is better than all other strategies, or to express the existence of Nash equilibria. We investigate the expressivity of HyperSt$^2$ by comparing it to existing logics for stochastic games, as well as existing hyperlogics. Though the model-checking problem for HyperSt$^2$ is in general undecidable, we show that it becomes decidable for bounded memory and is in EXPTIME and PSPACE-hard over memoryless deterministic strategies, and we identify a fragment for which the model-checking problem is PSPACE-complete.

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arXiv2025

Saturation Problems for Families of Automata

Families of deterministic finite automata (FDFA) represent regular $ω$-languages through their ultimately periodic words (UP-words). An FDFA accepts pairs of words, where the first component corresponds to a prefix of the UP-word, and the second component represents a period of that UP-word. An FDFA is termed saturated if, for each UP-word, either all or none of the pairs representing that UP-word are accepted. We demonstrate that determining whether a given FDFA is saturated can be accomplished in polynomial time, thus improving the known PSPACE upper bound by an exponential. We illustrate the application of this result by presenting the first polynomial learning algorithms for representations of the class of all regular $ω$-languages. Furthermore, we establish that deciding a weaker property, referred to as almost saturation, is PSPACE-complete. Since FDFAs do not necessarily define regular $ω$-languages when they are not saturated, we also address the regularity problem and show that it is PSPACE-complete. Finally, we explore a variant of FDFAs called families of deterministic weak automata (FDWA), where the semantics for the periodic part of the UP-word considers $ω$-words instead of finite words. We demonstrate that saturation for FDWAs is also decidable in polynomial time, that FDWAs always define regular $ω$-languages, and we compare the succinctness of these different models.

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arXiv2025

Finite-valued Streaming String Transducers

A transducer is finite-valued if for some bound k, it maps any given input to at most k outputs. For classical, one-way transducers, it is known since the 80s that finite valuedness entails decidability of the equivalence problem. This decidability result is in contrast to the general case, which makes finite-valued transducers very attractive. For classical transducers, it is also known that finite valuedness is decidable and that any k-valued finite transducer can be decomposed as a union of k single-valued finite transducers. In this paper, we extend the above results to copyless streaming string transducers (SSTs), answering questions raised by Alur and Deshmukh in 2011. SSTs strictly extend the expressiveness of one-way transducers via additional variables that store partial outputs. We prove that any k-valued SST can be effectively decomposed as a union of k (single-valued) deterministic SSTs. As a corollary, we obtain equivalence of SSTs and two-way transducers in the finite-valued case (those two models are incomparable in general). Another corollary is an elementary upper bound for checking equivalence of finite-valued SSTs. The latter problem was already known to be decidable, but the proof complexity was unknown (it relied on Ehrenfeucht's conjecture). Finally, our main result is that finite valuedness of SSTs is decidable. The complexity is PSpace, and even PTime when the number of variables is fixed.

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arXiv2024

Constructing Deterministic Parity Automata from Positive and Negative Examples

We present a polynomial time algorithm that constructs a deterministic parity automaton (DPA) from a given set of positive and negative ultimately periodic example words. We show that this algorithm is complete for the class of $ω$-regular languages, that is, it can learn a DPA for each regular $ω$-language. For use in the algorithm, we give a definition of a DPA, that we call the precise DPA of a language, and show that it can be constructed from the syntactic family of right congruences for that language (introduced by Maler and Staiger in 1997). Depending on the structure of the language, the precise DPA can be of exponential size compared to a minimal DPA, but it can also be a minimal DPA. The upper bound that we obtain on the number of examples required for our algorithm to find a DPA for $L$ is therefore exponential in the size of a minimal DPA, in general. However we identify two parameters of regular $ω$-languages such that fixing these parameters makes the bound polynomial.

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arXiv2024

A Regular and Complete Notion of Delay for Streaming String Transducers

The notion of delay between finite transducers is a core element of numerous fundamental results of transducer theory. The goal of this work is to provide a similar notion for more complex abstract machines: we introduce a new notion of delay tailored to measure the similarity between streaming string transducers (SST). We show that our notion is regular: we design a finite automaton that can check whether the delay between any two SSTs executions is smaller than some given bound. As a consequence, our notion enjoys good decidability properties: in particular, while equivalence between non-deterministic SSTs is undecidable, we show that equivalence up to fixed delay is decidable. Moreover, we show that our notion has good completeness properties: we prove that two SSTs are equivalent if and only if they are equivalent up to some (computable) bounded delay. Together with the regularity of our delay notion, it provides an alternative proof that SSTs equivalence is decidable. Finally, the definition of our delay notion is machine-independent, as it only depends on the origin semantics of SSTs. As a corollary, the completeness result also holds for equivalent machine models such as deterministic two-way transducers, or MSO transducers.

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arXiv2024

On the Boolean Closure of Deterministic Top-Down Tree Automata

The class of Boolean combinations of tree languages recognized by deterministic top-down tree automata (also known as deterministic root-to-frontier automata) is studied. The problem of determining for a given regular tree language whether it belongs to this class is open. We provide some progress by two results: First, a characterization of this class by a natural extension of deterministic top-down tree automata is presented, and as an application we obtain a convenient method to show that certain regular tree languages are outside this class. In the second result, it is shown that, for fixed $k$, it is decidable whether a regular tree language is a Boolean combination of $k$ tree languages recognized by deterministic top-down tree automata.

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arXiv2023

Resynchronized Uniformization and Definability Problems for Rational Relations

Regular synchronization languages can be used to define rational relations of finite words, and to characterize subclasses of rational relations, like automatic or recognizable relations. We provide a systematic study of the decidability of uniformization and definability problems for subclasses of rational relations defined in terms of such synchronization languages. We rephrase known results in this setting and complete the picture by adding several new decidability and undecidability results.

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arXiv2023

On Minimization and Learning of Deterministic $ω$-Automata in the Presence of Don't Care Words

We study minimization problems for deterministic $ω$-automata in the presence of don't care words. We prove that the number of priorities in deterministic parity automata can be efficiently minimized under an arbitrary set of don't care words. We derive that from a more general result from which one also obtains an efficient minimization algorithm for deterministic parity automata with informative right-congruence (without don't care words). We then analyze languages of don't care words with a trivial right-congruence. For such sets of don't care words it is known that weak deterministic Büchi automata (WDBA) have a unique minimal automaton that can be efficiently computed from a given WDBA (Eisinger, Klaedtke 2006). We give a congruence-based characterization of the corresponding minimal WDBA, and show that the don't care minimization results for WDBA do not extend to deterministic $ω$-automata with informative right-congruence: for this class there is no unique minimal automaton for a given don't care set with trivial right congruence, and the minimization problem is NP-hard. Finally, we extend an active learning algorithm for WDBA (Maler, Pnueli 1995) to the setting with an additional set of don't care words with trivial right-congruence.

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arXiv2022

A First-Order Logic with Frames

We propose a novel logic, called Frame Logic (FL), that extends first-order logic (with recursive definitions) using a construct Sp(.) that captures the implicit supports of formulas -- the precise subset of the universe upon which their meaning depends. Using such supports, we formulate proof rules that facilitate frame reasoning elegantly when the underlying model undergoes change. We show that the logic is expressive by capturing several data-structures and also exhibit a translation from a precise fragment of separation logic to frame logic. Finally, we design a program logic based on frame logic for reasoning with programs that dynamically update heaps that facilitates local specifications and frame reasoning. This program logic consists of both localized proof rules as well as rules that derive the weakest tightest preconditions in FL.

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arXiv2022

Model-Guided Synthesis of Inductive Lemmas for FOL with Least Fixpoints

Recursively defined linked data structures embedded in a pointer-based heap and their properties are naturally expressed in pure first-order logic with least fixpoint definitions (FO+lfp) with background theories. Such logics, unlike pure first-order logic, do not admit even complete procedures. In this paper, we undertake a novel approach for synthesizing inductive hypotheses to prove validity in this logic. The idea is to utilize several kinds of finite first-order models as counterexamples that capture the non-provability and invalidity of formulas to guide the search for inductive hypotheses. We implement our procedures and evaluate them extensively over theorems involving heap data structures that require inductive proofs and demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodology.

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arXiv2021

Constructing deterministic $ω$-automata from examples by an extension of the RPNI algorithm

The RPNI algorithm (Oncina, Garcia 1992) constructs deterministic finite automata from finite sets of negative and positive example words. We propose and analyze an extension of this algorithm to deterministic $ω$-automata with different types of acceptance conditions. In order to obtain this generalization of RPNI, we develop algorithms for the standard acceptance conditions of $ω$-automata that check for a given set of example words and a deterministic transition system, whether these example words can be accepted in the transition system with a corresponding acceptance condition. Based on these algorithms, we can define the extension of RPNI to infinite words. We prove that it can learn all deterministic $ω$-automata with an informative right congruence in the limit with polynomial time and data. We also show that the algorithm, while it can learn some automata that do not have an informative right congruence, cannot learn deterministic $ω$-automata for all regular $ω$-languages in the limit. Finally, we also prove that active learning with membership and equivalence queries is not easier for automata with an informative right congruence than for general deterministic $ω$-automata.

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arXiv2021

Synthesis from Weighted Specifications with Partial Domains over Finite Words

In this paper, we investigate the synthesis problem of terminating reactive systems from quantitative specifications. Such systems are modeled as finite transducers whose executions are represented as finite words in $(I\times O)^*$, where $I,O$ are finite sets of input and output symbols, respectively. A weighted specification $S$ assigns a rational value (or $-\infty$) to words in $(I\times O)^*$, and we consider three kinds of objectives for synthesis, namely threshold objectives where the system's executions are required to be above some given threshold, best-value and approximate objectives where the system is required to perform as best as it can by providing output symbols that yield the best value and $\varepsilon$-best value respectively w.r.t. $S$. We establish a landscape of decidability results for these three objectives and weighted specifications with partial domain over finite words given by deterministic weighted automata equipped with sum, discounted-sum and average measures. The resulting objectives are not regular in general and we develop an infinite game framework to solve the corresponding synthesis problems, namely the class of (weighted) critical prefix games.

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arXiv2020

Ambiguity, Weakness, and Regularity in Probabilistic Büchi Automata

Probabilistic Büchi automata are a natural generalization of PFA to infinite words, but have been studied in-depth only rather recently and many interesting questions are still open. PBA are known to accept, in general, a class of languages that goes beyond the regular languages. In this work we extend the known classes of restricted PBA which are still regular, strongly relying on notions concerning ambiguity in classical omega-automata. Furthermore, we investigate the expressivity of the not yet considered but natural class of weak PBA, and we also show that the regularity problem for weak PBA is undecidable.

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arXiv2019

New Optimizations and Heuristics for Determinization of Büchi Automata

In this work, we present multiple new optimizations and heuristics for the determinization of Büchi automata that exploit a number of semantic and structural properties, most of which may be applied together with any determinization procedure. We built a prototype implementation where all the presented heuristics can be freely combined and evaluated them, comparing our implementation with the state-of-the-art tool spot on multiple data sets with different characteristics. Our results show that the proposed optimizations and heuristics can in some cases significantly decrease the size of the resulting deterministic automaton.

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arXiv2019

New Pumping Technique for 2-dimensional VASS

We propose a new pumping technique for 2-dimensional vector addition systems with states (2-VASS) building on natural geometric properties of runs. We illustrate its applicability by reproving an exponential bound on the length of the shortest accepting run, and by proving a new pumping lemma for languages of 2-VASS. The technique is expected to be useful for settling questions concerning languages of 2-VASS, e.g., for establishing decidability status of the regular separability problem.

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arXiv2019

Determinization of Büchi Automata: Unifying the Approaches of Safra and Muller-Schupp

Determinization of Büchi automata is a long-known difficult problem and after the seminal result of Safra, who developed the first asymptotically optimal construction from Büchi into Rabin automata, much work went into improving, simplifying or avoiding Safra's construction. A different, less known determinization construction was derived by Muller and Schupp and appears to be unrelated to Safra's construction on the first sight. In this paper we propose a new meta-construction from nondeterministic Büchi to deterministic parity automata which strictly subsumes both the construction of Safra and the construction of Muller and Schupp. It is based on a correspondence between structures that are encoded in the macrostates of the determinization procedures - Safra trees on one hand, and levels of the split-tree, which underlies the Muller and Schupp construction, on the other. Our construction allows for combining the mentioned constructions and opens up new directions for the development of heuristics.

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