A Note on Ordinal DFAs

TL;DR

This paper characterizes when the language of a trim DFA over a Boolean alphabet is well-ordered by lexicographic order, providing a polynomial-time decision algorithm and connecting to the least nonregular ordinal.

Contribution

It establishes a necessary and sufficient condition for lexicographic well-ordering of DFA languages and introduces an efficient algorithm for this decision problem.

Findings

Characterization of lexicographic well-ordered DFA languages

Polynomial-time algorithm for the decision problem

Connection to the least nonregular ordinal                      

Abstract

We prove the following theorem. Suppose that $M$ is a trim DFA on the Boolean alphabet $0,1$. The language $\L(M)$ is well-ordered by the lexicographic order $\slex$ iff whenever the non sink states $q,q.0$ are in the same strong component, then $q.1$ is a sink. It is easy to see that this property is sufficient. In order to show the necessity, we analyze the behavior of a $\slex$-descending sequence of words. This property is used to obtain a polynomial time algorithm to determine, given a DFA $M$, whether $\L(M)$ is well-ordered by the lexicographic order. Last, we apply an argument in \cite{BE,BEa} to give a proof that the least nonregular ordinal is $\omega^\omega $.