Deterministic pushdown automata and unary languages

dc.creatorPighizzini, Giovanni
dc.date2009-05-08
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T13:13:04Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T13:13:04Z
dc.descriptionThe simulation of deterministic pushdown automata defined over a one-letter alphabet by finite state automata is investigated from a descriptional complexity point of view. We show that each unary deterministic pushdown automaton of size s can be simulated by a deterministic finite automaton with a number of states that is exponential in s. We prove that this simulation is tight. Furthermore, its cost cannot be reduced even if it is performed by a two-way nondeterministic automaton. We also prove that there are unary languages for which deterministic pushdown automata cannot be exponentially more succinct than finite automata. In order to state this result, we investigate the conversion of deterministic pushdown automata into context-free grammars. We prove that in the unary case the number of variables in the resulting grammar is strictly smaller than the number of variables needed in the case of nonunary alphabets.
dc.description17 pages. Preprint of an article submitted for consideration in the International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science (World Scientific Publishing Company). A preliminary version was presented at the conference CIAA 2008
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1248
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1248
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/229768
dc.subjectFormal Languages and Automata Theory
dc.subjectF.1.1; F.4.3
dc.titleDeterministic pushdown automata and unary languages
dc.typetext

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