On the complexity of ω-pushdown automata

• Published in: Science China. Information sciences Vol. 60; no. 11; pp. 152 - 166
• Main Authors: Lei, Yusi, Song, Fu, Liu, Wanwei, Zhang, Min
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Science China Press 01.11.2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Algorithms; Automata theory; Complexity; Computer Science; Information Systems and Communication Service; Parity; Polynomials; Research Paper; Temporal logic; 下推自动机; 复杂性; 有限自动机; 空间复杂度; 系统验证; 自然模型; 逻辑检查; 高效算法; words; linear temporal logic; emptiness; model checking; pushdown automata
• ISSN: 1674-733X; 1869-1919
• DOI: 10.1007/s11432-016-9026-x

Finite automata over infinite words （called w-automata） play an important role in the automata- theoretic approach to system verification. Different types of w-automata differ in their succinctness and complexity of their emptiness problems, as a result, theory of w-automata has received considerable research attention. Pushdown automata over infinite words （called w-PDAs）, a generalization of w-automata, are a natural model of recursive programs. Our goal in this paper is to conduct a relatively complete investigation on the complexity of the emptiness problems for variants of w-PDAs. For this purpose, we consider w-PDAs of five standard acceptance types： Buchi, Parity, Rabin, Streett and Muller acceptances. Based on the transformation for w-automata and the efficient algorithm proposed by Esparza et al. in CAV＇00 for verifying the emptiness problem of w-PDAs with Biiehi acceptance, it is trivial to check the emptiness problem of other w-PDAs. However, this naive approach is not optimal. In this paper, we propose novel algorithms for the emptiness problem of w-PDAs based on the observations of the structure of accepting runs. Our algorithms outperform algorithms that go through uchi PDAs. In particular, the space complexity of the algorithm for Streett acceptance that goes through Bfichi acceptance is exponential, while ours is polynomial. The algorithm for Parity acceptance that goes through Buchi acceptance is in O（k3n2m） time and O（k2nm） space, while ours is in O（kn2m） time and O（nm） space, where n （resp. m and k） is the number of control states （resp. transitions and index）. Finally, we show that our algorithms yield a better solution for the pushdown model checking problem against linear temporal logic with fairness.