Good-for-games -Pushdown Automata
arXiv:2001.04392 · doi:10.46298/lmcs-18(1:3)2022
Abstract
We introduce good-for-games -pushdown automata (-GFG-PDA). These are automata whose nondeterminism can be resolved based on the input processed so far. Good-for-gameness enables automata to be composed with games, trees, and other automata, applications which otherwise require deterministic automata. Our main results are that -GFG-PDA are more expressive than deterministic - pushdown automata and that solving infinite games with winning conditions specified by -GFG-PDA is EXPTIME-complete. Thus, we have identified a new class of -contextfree winning conditions for which solving games is decidable. It follows that the universality problem for -GFG-PDA is in EXPTIME as well. Moreover, we study closure properties of the class of languages recognized by -GFG- PDA and decidability of good-for-gameness of -pushdown automata and languages. Finally, we compare -GFG-PDA to -visibly PDA, study the resources necessary to resolve the nondeterminism in -GFG-PDA, and prove that the parity index hierarchy for -GFG-PDA is infinite. This is a corrected version of the paper arXiv:2001.04392v6 published originally on January 7, 2022.