LogicMeetsAlgebratheCaseofRegularLanguages.PDFVIP

Logical Methods in Computer Science Volume 00, Number 0, Pages 000–000 S 0000-0000(XX)0000-0 LOGIC MEETS ALGEBRA: THE CASE OF REGULAR LANGUAGES PASCAL TESSON AND DENIS THÉRIEN Département d’Informatique et de Génie Logiciel, Université Laval E-mail address : pascal.tesson@ift.ulaval.ca School of Computer Science, McGill University E-mail address : denis@cs.mcgill.ca Abstract. The study of finite automata and regular languages is a privileged meeting point of algebra and logic. Since the work of Büchi, regular languages have been classified according to their descriptive complexity, i.e. the type of logical formalism required to define them. The algebraic point of view on automata is an essential complement of this classification: by providing alternative, algebraic characterizations for the classes, it often yields the only opportunity for the design of algorithms that decide expressibility in some logical fragment. We survey the existing results relating the expressibility of regular languages in logical fragments of MSO[S] with algebraic properties of their minimal automata. In particular, we show that many of the best known results in this area share the same underlying mechanics and rely on a very strong relation between logical substitutions and block- products of pseudovarieties of monoid. We also explain the impact of these connections to circuit complexity theory. 1. Introduction Kleene’s theorem insures that finite automata and regular expressions have the same expressive power and so we tend to forget that these two points of view on regular languages are of a differ