12 Search Results for "Thejaswini, K. S."

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.41
On the Complexity of Computing Strahler Numbers

Authors: Moses Ganardi and Markus Lohrey

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)

Abstract
It is shown that the problem of computing the Strahler number of a binary tree given as a term is complete for the circuit complexity class uniform NC¹. For several variants, where the binary tree is given by a pointer structure or in a succinct form by a directed acyclic graph or a tree straight-line program, the complexity of computing the Strahler number is determined as well. The problem, whether a given context-free grammar in Chomsky normal form produces a derivation tree (resp., an acyclic derivation tree), whose Strahler number is at least a given number k is shown to be P-complete (resp., PSPACE-complete).
Cite as

Moses Ganardi and Markus Lohrey. On the Complexity of Computing Strahler Numbers. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 41:1-41:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{ganardi_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.41,
  author =	{Ganardi, Moses and Lohrey, Markus},
  title =	{{On the Complexity of Computing Strahler Numbers}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{41:1--41:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.41},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255301},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.41},
  annote =	{Keywords: Strahler number, circuit complexity classes, context-free grammars}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.9
ε-Stationary Nash Equilibria in Multi-Player Stochastic Graph Games

Authors: Ali Asadi, Léonard Brice, Krishnendu Chatterjee, and K. S. Thejaswini

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 360, 45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025)

Abstract
A strategy profile in a multi-player game is a Nash equilibrium if no player can unilaterally deviate to achieve a strictly better payoff. A profile is an ε-Nash equilibrium if no player can gain more than ε by unilaterally deviating from their strategy. In this work, we use ε-Nash equilibria to approximate the computation of Nash equilibria. Specifically, we focus on turn-based, multiplayer stochastic games played on graphs, where players are restricted to stationary strategies - strategies that use randomness but not memory. The problem of deciding the constrained existence of stationary Nash equilibria - where each player’s payoff must lie within a given interval - is known to be ∃ℝ-complete in such a setting (Hansen and Sølvsten, 2020). We extend this line of work to stationary ε-Nash equilibria and present an algorithm that solves the following promise problem: given a game with a Nash equilibrium satisfying the constraints, compute an ε-Nash equilibrium that ε-satisfies those same constraints - satisfies the constraints up to an ε additive error. Our algorithm runs in FNP^NP time. To achieve this, we first show that if a constrained Nash equilibrium exists, then one exists where the non-zero probabilities are at least an inverse of a double-exponential in the input. We further prove that such a strategy can be encoded using floating-point representations, as in the work of Frederiksen and Miltersen (2013), which finally gives us our FNP^NP algorithm. We further show that the decision version of the promise problem is NP-hard. Finally, we show a partial tightness result by proving a lower bound for such techniques: if a constrained Nash equilibrium exists, then there must be one where the probabilities in the strategies are double-exponentially small.
Cite as

Ali Asadi, Léonard Brice, Krishnendu Chatterjee, and K. S. Thejaswini. ε-Stationary Nash Equilibria in Multi-Player Stochastic Graph Games. In 45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 360, pp. 9:1-9:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{asadi_et_al:LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.9,
  author =	{Asadi, Ali and Brice, L\'{e}onard and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Thejaswini, K. S.},
  title =	{{\epsilon-Stationary Nash Equilibria in Multi-Player Stochastic Graph Games}},
  booktitle =	{45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025)},
  pages =	{9:1--9:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-406-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{360},
  editor =	{Aiswarya, C. and Mehta, Ruta and Roy, Subhajit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.9},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-250897},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.9},
  annote =	{Keywords: Nash Equilibria, \epsilon-Nash equilibria, Approximation, Existential Theory of Reals}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.30
Finding Equilibria: Simpler for Pessimists, Simplest for Optimists

Authors: Léonard Brice, Thomas A. Henzinger, and K. S. Thejaswini

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)

Abstract
We consider equilibria in multiplayer stochastic graph games with terminal-node rewards. In such games, Nash equilibria are defined assuming that each player seeks to maximise their expected payoff, ignoring their aversion or tolerance to risk. We therefore study risk-sensitive equilibria (RSEs), where the expected payoff is replaced by a risk measure. A classical risk measure in the literature is the entropic risk measure, where each player has a real valued parameter capturing their risk-averseness. We introduce the extreme risk measure, which corresponds to extreme cases of entropic risk measure, where players are either extreme optimists or extreme pessimists. Under extreme risk measure, every player is an extremist: an extreme optimist perceives their reward as the maximum payoff that can be achieved with positive probability, while an extreme pessimist expects the minimum payoff achievable with positive probability. We argue that the extreme risk measure, especially in multi-player graph based settings, is particularly relevant as they can model several real life instances such as interactions between secure systems and potential security threats, or distributed controls for safety critical systems. We prove that RSEs defined with the extreme risk measure are guaranteed to exist when all rewards are non-negative. Furthermore, we prove that the problem of deciding whether a given game contains an RSE that generates risk measures within specified intervals is decidable and NP-complete for our extreme risk measure, and even PTIME-complete when all players are extreme optimists, while that same problem is undecidable using the entropic risk measure or even the classical expected payoff. This establishes, to our knowledge, the first decidable fragment for equilibria in simple stochastic games without restrictions on strategy types or number of players.
Cite as

Léonard Brice, Thomas A. Henzinger, and K. S. Thejaswini. Finding Equilibria: Simpler for Pessimists, Simplest for Optimists. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 30:1-30:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{brice_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.30,
  author =	{Brice, L\'{e}onard and Henzinger, Thomas A. and Thejaswini, K. S.},
  title =	{{Finding Equilibria: Simpler for Pessimists, Simplest for Optimists}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{30:1--30:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.30},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241371},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.30},
  annote =	{Keywords: Nash equilibria, stochastic games, graph games, risk-sensitive equilibria}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.57
Resolving Nondeterminism with Randomness

Authors: Thomas A. Henzinger, Aditya Prakash, and K. S. Thejaswini

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)

Abstract
We define and study classes of ω-regular automata for which the nondeterminism can be resolved by a policy that uses a combination of memory and randomness on any input word, based solely on the prefix read so far. We examine two settings for providing the input word to an automaton. In the first setting, called adversarial resolvability, the input word is constructed letter-by-letter by an adversary, dependent on the resolver’s previous decisions. In the second setting, called stochastic resolvability, the adversary pre-commits to an infinite word and reveals it letter-by-letter. In each setting, we require the existence of an almost-sure resolver, i.e., a policy that ensures that as long as the adversary provides a word in the language of the underlying nondeterministic automaton, the run constructed by the policy is accepting with probability 1. The class of automata that are adversarially resolvable is the well-studied class of history-deterministic automata. The case of stochastically resolvable automata, on the other hand, defines a novel class. Restricting the class of resolvers in both settings to stochastic policies without memory introduces two additional new classes of automata. We show that the new automata classes offer interesting trade-offs between succinctness, expressivity, and computational complexity, providing a fine gradation between deterministic automata and nondeterministic automata.
Cite as

Thomas A. Henzinger, Aditya Prakash, and K. S. Thejaswini. Resolving Nondeterminism with Randomness. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 57:1-57:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{henzinger_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.57,
  author =	{Henzinger, Thomas A. and Prakash, Aditya and Thejaswini, K. S.},
  title =	{{Resolving Nondeterminism with Randomness}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{57:1--57:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.57},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241645},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.57},
  annote =	{Keywords: \omega-regular languages, History determinism, Stochastic strategies}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.32
Resolving Nondeterminism by Chance

Authors: Soumyajit Paul, David Purser, Sven Schewe, Qiyi Tang, Patrick Totzke, and Di-De Yen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 348, 36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025)

Abstract
History-deterministic automata are those in which nondeterministic choices can be correctly resolved stepwise: there is a strategy to select a continuation of a run given the next input letter so that if the overall input word admits some accepting run, then the constructed run is also accepting. Motivated by checking qualitative properties in probabilistic verification, we consider the setting where the resolver strategy can randomise and only needs to succeed with lower-bounded probability. We study the expressiveness of such stochastically-resolvable automata as well as consider the decision questions of whether a given automaton has this property. In particular, we show that it is undecidable to check if a given NFA is λ-stochastically resolvable. This problem is decidable for finitely-ambiguous automata. We also present complexity upper and lower bounds for several well-studied classes of automata for which this problem remains decidable.
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Soumyajit Paul, David Purser, Sven Schewe, Qiyi Tang, Patrick Totzke, and Di-De Yen. Resolving Nondeterminism by Chance. In 36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 348, pp. 32:1-32:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{paul_et_al:LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.32,
  author =	{Paul, Soumyajit and Purser, David and Schewe, Sven and Tang, Qiyi and Totzke, Patrick and Yen, Di-De},
  title =	{{Resolving Nondeterminism by Chance}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025)},
  pages =	{32:1--32:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-389-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{348},
  editor =	{Bouyer, Patricia and van de Pol, Jaco},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.32},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239822},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.32},
  annote =	{Keywords: History-determinism, finite automata, probabilistic automata}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.13
Languages of Boundedly-Ambiguous Vector Addition Systems with States

Authors: Wojciech Czerwiński and Łukasz Orlikowski

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 348, 36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025)

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to deliver broad understanding of a class of languages of boundedly-ambiguous VASSs, that is k-ambiguous VASSs for some natural k. These are languages of Vector Addition Systems with States with the acceptance condition defined by the set of accepting states such that each accepted word has at most k accepting runs. We develop tools for proving that a given language is not accepted by any k-ambiguous VASS. Using them we show a few negative results: lack of some closure properties of languages of k-ambiguous VASSs and undecidability of the k-ambiguity problem, namely the question whether a given VASS language is a language of some k-ambiguous VASS. In fact we show an even more general undecidability result stating that for any class containing all regular languages and only k-ambiguous VASS languages for some k ∈ ℕ it is undecidable whether a language of a given 1-dimensional VASS belongs to this class. Finally, we show that the regularity problem is decidable for k-ambiguous VASSs.
Cite as

Wojciech Czerwiński and Łukasz Orlikowski. Languages of Boundedly-Ambiguous Vector Addition Systems with States. In 36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 348, pp. 13:1-13:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{czerwinski_et_al:LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.13,
  author =	{Czerwi\'{n}ski, Wojciech and Orlikowski, {\L}ukasz},
  title =	{{Languages of Boundedly-Ambiguous Vector Addition Systems with States}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025)},
  pages =	{13:1--13:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-389-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{348},
  editor =	{Bouyer, Patricia and van de Pol, Jaco},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.13},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239635},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.13},
  annote =	{Keywords: vector addition systems, Petri nets, unambiguity, bounded-ambiguity, languages}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.160
Using Games and Universal Trees to Characterise the Nondeterministic Index of Tree Languages

Authors: Olivier Idir and Karoliina Lehtinen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
The parity index problem of tree automata asks, given a regular tree language L and a set of priorities J, is L J-feasible, that is, recognised by a nondeterministic parity automaton with priorities J? This is a long-standing open problem, of which only a few sub-cases and variations are known to be decidable. In a significant but technically difficult step, Colcombet and Löding reduced the problem to the uniform universality of distance-parity automata. In this article, we revisit the index problem using tools from the parity game literature. We add some counters to Lehtinen’s register game, originally used to solve parity games in quasipolynomial time, and use this novel game to characterise J-feasibility. This provides a alternative proof to Colcombet and Löding’s reduction. We then provide a second characterisation, based on the notion of attractor decompositions and the complexity of their structure, as measured by a parameterised version of their Strahler number, which we call n-Strahler number. Finally, we rephrase this result using the notion of universal tree extended to automata: a guidable automaton recognises a [1,2j]-feasible language if and only if it admits a universal tree with n-Strahler number j, for some n. In particular, a language recognised by a guidable automaton {A} is Büchi-feasible if and only if there is a uniform bound n ∈ ℕ such that all trees in the language admit an accepting run with an attractor decomposition of width bounded by n. Equivalently, the language is Büchi-feasible if and only if {A} admits a finite universal tree. While we do not solve the decidability of the index problem, our work makes the state-of-the-art more accessible and brings to light the deep relationships between the J-feasibility of a language and attractor decompositions, universal trees and Lehtinen’s register game.
Cite as

Olivier Idir and Karoliina Lehtinen. Using Games and Universal Trees to Characterise the Nondeterministic Index of Tree Languages. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 160:1-160:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{idir_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.160,
  author =	{Idir, Olivier and Lehtinen, Karoliina},
  title =	{{Using Games and Universal Trees to Characterise the Nondeterministic Index of Tree Languages}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{160:1--160:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.160},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-235377},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.160},
  annote =	{Keywords: Tree automata, parity automata, Mostowski index, Strahler number, attractor decomposition, universal trees}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.164
A Collapse of the Parity Index Hierarchy of Tree Automata, Based on Cantor-Bendixson Ranks

Authors: Karoliina Lehtinen and Nathan Lhote

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
Over words, nondeterministic Büchi automata and alternating weak automata are as expressive as parity automata with any number of priorities. Over trees, the Büchi acceptance condition is strictly weaker and the more priorities we allow, the more languages parity automata can recognise. We say that on words, the parity-index hierarchies of nondeterministic and alternating automata collapse to the Büchi and weak level, respectively, while both are infinite over trees. We ask when is Büchi enough?, that is, on which classes of trees are nondeterministc Büchi automata as expressive as parity automata. Similarly for alternating weak automata. We work in the setting of unranked unordered trees, in which there is no order among the children of nodes. We find that for nondeterministic and alternating automata, the parity-index hierarchy collapses to the Büchi level and weak level, respectively, for any class of trees of finitely bounded Cantor-Bendixson rank, a topological measure of tree complexity. Over trees of countable Cantor-Bendixson rank, (a.k.a. thin trees) the parity-index hierarchy of both nondeterministic and alternating automata collapses to the level [1,2,3], as was already known for ordered trees. These results are in some sense optimal: on the class of trees of finite but unbounded Cantor-Bendixson rank, two priorities do not suffice to recognise all parity-recognisable languages, even for alternating automata.
Cite as

Karoliina Lehtinen and Nathan Lhote. A Collapse of the Parity Index Hierarchy of Tree Automata, Based on Cantor-Bendixson Ranks. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 164:1-164:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{lehtinen_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.164,
  author =	{Lehtinen, Karoliina and Lhote, Nathan},
  title =	{{A Collapse of the Parity Index Hierarchy of Tree Automata, Based on Cantor-Bendixson Ranks}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{164:1--164:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.164},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-235418},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.164},
  annote =	{Keywords: Parity tree automata, alternating automata, Cantor-Bendixson rank}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145
Reducing Stochastic Games to Semidefinite Programming

Authors: Manuel Bodirsky, Georg Loho, and Mateusz Skomra

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
We present a polynomial-time reduction from max-average constraints to the feasibility problem for semidefinite programs. This shows that Condon’s simple stochastic games, stochastic mean payoff games, and in particular mean payoff games and parity games can all be reduced to semidefinite programming.
Cite as

Manuel Bodirsky, Georg Loho, and Mateusz Skomra. Reducing Stochastic Games to Semidefinite Programming. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 145:1-145:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{bodirsky_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145,
  author =	{Bodirsky, Manuel and Loho, Georg and Skomra, Mateusz},
  title =	{{Reducing Stochastic Games to Semidefinite Programming}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{145:1--145:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-235224},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145},
  annote =	{Keywords: Mean-payoff games, stochastic games, semidefinite programming, max-average constraints, max-atom problem}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2022.44
A Technique to Speed up Symmetric Attractor-Based Algorithms for Parity Games

Authors: K. S. Thejaswini, Pierre Ohlmann, and Marcin Jurdziński

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 250, 42nd IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2022)

Abstract
The classic McNaughton-Zielonka algorithm for solving parity games has excellent performance in practice, but its worst-case asymptotic complexity is worse than that of the state-of-the-art algorithms. This work pinpoints the mechanism that is responsible for this relative underperformance and proposes a new technique that eliminates it. The culprit is the wasteful manner in which the results obtained from recursive calls are indiscriminately discarded by the algorithm whenever subgames on which the algorithm is run change. Our new technique is based on firstly enhancing the algorithm to compute attractor decompositions of subgames instead of just winning strategies on them, and then on making it carefully use attractor decompositions computed in prior recursive calls to reduce the size of subgames on which further recursive calls are made. We illustrate the new technique on the classic example of the recursive McNaughton-Zielonka algorithm, but it can be applied to other symmetric attractor-based algorithms that were inspired by it, such as the quasi-polynomial versions of the McNaughton-Zielonka algorithm based on universal trees.
Cite as

K. S. Thejaswini, Pierre Ohlmann, and Marcin Jurdziński. A Technique to Speed up Symmetric Attractor-Based Algorithms for Parity Games. In 42nd IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 250, pp. 44:1-44:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{thejaswini_et_al:LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2022.44,
  author =	{Thejaswini, K. S. and Ohlmann, Pierre and Jurdzi\'{n}ski, Marcin},
  title =	{{A Technique to Speed up Symmetric Attractor-Based Algorithms for Parity Games}},
  booktitle =	{42nd IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2022)},
  pages =	{44:1--44:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-261-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{250},
  editor =	{Dawar, Anuj and Guruswami, Venkatesan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2022.44},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-174365},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2022.44},
  annote =	{Keywords: Parity games, Attractor decomposition, Quasipolynomial Algorithms, Universal trees}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2021.17
Adaptive Synchronisation of Pushdown Automata

Authors: A. R. Balasubramanian and K. S. Thejaswini

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 203, 32nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2021)

Abstract
We introduce the notion of adaptive synchronisation for pushdown automata, in which there is an external observer who has no knowledge about the current state of the pushdown automaton, but can observe the contents of the stack. The observer would then like to decide if it is possible to bring the automaton from any state into some predetermined state by giving inputs to it in an adaptive manner, i.e., the next input letter to be given can depend on how the contents of the stack changed after the current input letter. We show that for non-deterministic pushdown automata, this problem is 2-EXPTIME-complete and for deterministic pushdown automata, we show EXPTIME-completeness. To prove the lower bounds, we first introduce (different variants of) subset-synchronisation and show that these problems are polynomial-time equivalent with the adaptive synchronisation problem. We then prove hardness results for the subset-synchronisation problems. For proving the upper bounds, we consider the problem of deciding if a given alternating pushdown system has an accepting run with at most k leaves and we provide an n^O(k²) time algorithm for this problem.
Cite as

A. R. Balasubramanian and K. S. Thejaswini. Adaptive Synchronisation of Pushdown Automata. In 32nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 203, pp. 17:1-17:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)

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@InProceedings{balasubramanian_et_al:LIPIcs.CONCUR.2021.17,
  author =	{Balasubramanian, A. R. and Thejaswini, K. S.},
  title =	{{Adaptive Synchronisation of Pushdown Automata}},
  booktitle =	{32nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2021)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-203-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{203},
  editor =	{Haddad, Serge and Varacca, Daniele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2021.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-143948},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2021.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Adaptive synchronisation, Pushdown automata, Alternating pushdown systems}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.123
The Strahler Number of a Parity Game

Authors: Laure Daviaud, Marcin Jurdziński, and K. S. Thejaswini

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 168, 47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2020)

Abstract
The Strahler number of a rooted tree is the largest height of a perfect binary tree that is its minor. The Strahler number of a parity game is proposed to be defined as the smallest Strahler number of the tree of any of its attractor decompositions. It is proved that parity games can be solved in quasi-linear space and in time that is polynomial in the number of vertices n and linear in (d/(2k))^k, where d is the number of priorities and k is the Strahler number. This complexity is quasi-polynomial because the Strahler number is at most logarithmic in the number of vertices. The proof is based on a new construction of small Strahler-universal trees. It is shown that the Strahler number of a parity game is a robust, and hence arguably natural, parameter: it coincides with its alternative version based on trees of progress measures and - remarkably - with the register number defined by Lehtinen (2018). It follows that parity games can be solved in quasi-linear space and in time that is polynomial in the number of vertices and linear in (d/(2k))^k, where k is the register number. This significantly improves the running times and space achieved for parity games of bounded register number by Lehtinen (2018) and by Parys (2020). The running time of the algorithm based on small Strahler-universal trees yields a novel trade-off k ⋅ lg(d/k) = O(log n) between the two natural parameters that measure the structural complexity of a parity game, which allows solving parity games in polynomial time. This includes as special cases the asymptotic settings of those parameters covered by the results of Calude, Jain Khoussainov, Li, and Stephan (2017), of Jurdziński and Lazić (2017), and of Lehtinen (2018), and it significantly extends the range of such settings, for example to d = 2^O(√{lg n}) and k = O(√{lg n}).
Cite as

Laure Daviaud, Marcin Jurdziński, and K. S. Thejaswini. The Strahler Number of a Parity Game. In 47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 168, pp. 123:1-123:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

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@InProceedings{daviaud_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.123,
  author =	{Daviaud, Laure and Jurdzi\'{n}ski, Marcin and Thejaswini, K. S.},
  title =	{{The Strahler Number of a Parity Game}},
  booktitle =	{47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2020)},
  pages =	{123:1--123:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-138-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{168},
  editor =	{Czumaj, Artur and Dawar, Anuj and Merelli, Emanuela},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.123},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-125304},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.123},
  annote =	{Keywords: parity game, attractor decomposition, progress measure, universal tree, Strahler number}
}
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