Synchronizing Data Words for Register Automata

Abstract

Register automata (RAs) are finite automata extended with a finite set of registers to store and compare data. We study the concept of synchronizing data words in RAs: Does there exist a data word that sends all states of the RA to a single state? For deterministic RAs with k registers (k-DRAs), we prove that inputting data words with 2k+1 distinct data, from the infinite data domain, is sufficient to synchronize. We show that the synchronizing problem for DRAs is in general PSPACE-complete, and is NLOGSPACE-complete for 1-DRAs. For nondeterministic RAs (NRAs), we show that Ackermann(n) distinct data (where n is the size of RA) might be necessary to synchronize. The synchronizing problem for NRAs is in general undecidable, however, we establish Ackermann-completeness of the problem for 1-NRAs. Our most substantial achievement is proving NEXPTIME-completeness of the length-bounded synchronizing problem in NRAs (length encoded in binary). A variant of this last construction allows to prove that the bounded universality problem in NRAs is co-NEXPTIME-complete.