On the Accepting Power of 2-Tape B\"uchi Automata

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that 2-tape B"uchi automata have the same topological accepting power as Turing machines with B"uchi conditions, accepting complex infinitary relations corresponding to all non-null recursive ordinals.

Contribution

It establishes the equivalence in accepting power between 2-tape B"uchi automata and Turing machines with B"uchi acceptance, revealing their ability to recognize highly complex infinitary relations.

Findings

2-tape B"uchi automata accept all non-null recursive ordinal levels.

They recognize Sigma^0_alpha- and Pi^0_alpha-complete infinitary rational relations.

This automata class matches the topological complexity of Turing machines with B"uchi conditions.

Abstract

We show that, from a topological point of view, 2-tape B\"uchi automata have the same accepting power than Turing machines equipped with a B\"uchi acceptance condition. In particular, we show that for every non null recursive ordinal alpha, there exist some Sigma^0_alpha-complete and some Pi^0_alpha-complete infinitary rational relations accepted by 2-tape B\"uchi automata. This very surprising result gives answers to questions of W. Thomas [Automata and Quantifier Hierarchies, in: Formal Properties of Finite automata and Applications, Ramatuelle, 1988, LNCS 386, Springer, 1989, p.104-119], of P. Simonnet [Automates et Th\'eorie Descriptive, Ph. D. Thesis, Universit\'e Paris 7, March 1992], and of H. Lescow and W. Thomas [Logical Specifications of Infinite Computations, In: "A Decade of Concurrency", LNCS 803, Springer, 1994, p. 583-621].