Systems of equations over a free monoid and Ehrenfeucht's conjecture

Abstract

Ehrenfeucht's conjecture states that every language L has a finite subset F such that, for any pair ( g, h) of morphisms, g and h agree on every word of L if and only if they agree on every word of F. We show that it holds if and only if every infinite system of equations (with a finite number of unknowns) over a free monoid has an equivalent finite subsystem. It is shown that this holds true for rational (regular) systems of equations. The equivalence and inclusion problems for finite and rational systems of equations are shown to be decidable and, consequently, the validity of Ehrenfeucht's conjecture implies the decidability of the HDOL and DTOL sequence equivalence problems. The simplicity degree of a language is introduced and used to argue in support of Ehrenfeucht's conjecture.