Symmetries and transitions of bounded Turing machines

TL;DR

This paper explores the algebraic structures of various automata types, including bounded Turing machines, by extending automata theory with symmetry considerations and categorical methods, revealing new monoid representations.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework using symmetry and category theory to generalize automata, including bounded Turing machines, with novel monoid constructions and formulas from linear logic.

Findings

Transition monoids generalize to endomorphism monoids in compact closed categories.

Girard's resolution and execution formulas are used to construct images of words.

Bounded Turing machines are represented via monoid homomorphisms from natural numbers.

Abstract

We consider the structures given by repeatedly generalising the definition of finite state automata by symmetry considerations, and constructing analogues of transition monoids at each step. This approach first gives us non-deterministic automata, then (non-deterministic) two-way automata and bounded Turing machines --- that is, Turing machines where the read / write head is unable to move past the end of the input word. In the case of two-way automata, the transition monoids generalise to endomorphism monoids in compact closed categories. These use Girard's resolution formula (from the Geometry of Interaction representation of linear logic) to construct the images of singleton words. In the case of bounded Turing machines, the transition homomorphism generalises to a monoid homomorphism from the natural numbers to a monoid constructed from the union of endomorphism monoids of a compact closed category, together with an appropriate composition. These use Girard's execution formula (also from the Geometry of Interaction representation of linear logic) to construct images of singletons.