Generalized Predecessor Existence Problems for Boolean Finite Dynamical Systems

Abstract

A Boolean Finite Synchronous Dynamical System (BFDS, for short) consists of a finite number of objects that each maintains a boolean state, where after individually receiving state assignments, the objects update their state with respect to object-specific time-independent boolean functions synchronously in discrete time steps.
The present paper studies the computational complexity of determining, given a boolean finite synchronous dynamical system,
a configuration, which is a boolean vector representing the states
of the objects, and a positive integer t, whether there exists another configuration from which the given configuration can be reached in t steps. It was previously shown that this problem, which we call the t-Predecessor Problem, is NP-complete even for t = 1
if the update function of an object is either the conjunction of
arbitrary fan-in or the disjunction of arbitrary fan-in.

This paper studies the computational complexity of the t-Predecessor Problem for a variety of sets of permissible update functions as well as for polynomially bounded t. It also studies the t-Garden-Of-Eden Problem, a variant of the t-Predecessor Problem that asks whether a configuration has a t-predecessor, which itself has no predecessor. The paper obtains complexity theoretical characterizations of all but one of these problems.