Deciding probabilistic automata weak bisimulation: theory and practice. (March 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ferrer Fioriti, Luis; Hashemi, Vahid; Hermanns, Holger; Turrini, Andrea
• Is Part Of: Formal aspects of computing. Volume 28:Number 1(2016)
• Page Start: 109
• Page End: 143
• Publication Date: 2016-03
• Subjects: Complexity -- Compositional analysis -- Concurrency -- Efficiency -- Linear programming -- Probabilistic automata -- Satisfiability modulo theories -- Weak bisimulation; Computer science -- Periodicals; 004.05
• DOI: 10.1007/s00165-016-0356-4
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0934-5043

Abstract

Abstract Weak probabilistic bisimulation on probabilistic automata can be decided by an algorithm that needs to check a polynomial number of linear programming problems encoding weak transitions. It is hence of polynomial complexity. This paper discusses the specific complexity class of the weak probabilistic bisimulation problem, and it considers several practical algorithms and linear programming problem transformations that enable an efficient solution. We then discuss two different implementations of a probabilistic automata weak probabilistic bisimulation minimizer, one of them employing SAT modulo linear arithmetic as the solver technology. Empirical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the minimization approach on standard benchmarks, also highlighting the benefits of compositional minimization.