FINITE STATE PROCESSES, Z-TEMPORAL LOGIC AND THE MONADIC THEORY OF THE INTEGERS

Abstract

We introduce four classes of Z-regular grammars for generating bi-infinite words (i.e. Z-words) and prove that they generate exactly Z-regular languages. We extend the second order monadic theory of one successor to the set of the integers (i.e. Z) and give some characterizations of this theory in terms of Z-regular grammars and Z-regular languages. We prove that this theory is decidable and equivalent to the weak theory. We also extend the linear temporal logic to Z-temporal logic and then prove that each Z-temporal formula is equivalent to a first order monadic formula. We prove that the correctness problem for finite state processes is decidable.