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We examine the role that atoms of regular languages play in boolean automata. We observe that the size of a minimal boolean automaton of a regular language is directly related to the number of atoms of the language. We present a method to construct minimal boolean automata, using the atoms of a given regular language. The "illegal" cover problem of the Kameda-Weiner method for NFA minimization implies that using the union operation only to construct an automaton from a cover - as is the case with NFAs -, is not sufficient. We show that by using the union and the intersection operations (without the complementation operation), it is possible to construct boolean automata accepting a given language, for a given maximal cover.
@InProceedings{tamm:LIPIcs.MFCS.2021.86,
author = {Tamm, Hellis},
title = {{Boolean Automata and Atoms of Regular Languages}},
booktitle = {46th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2021)},
pages = {86:1--86:13},
series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
ISBN = {978-3-95977-201-3},
ISSN = {1868-8969},
year = {2021},
volume = {202},
editor = {Bonchi, Filippo and Puglisi, Simon J.},
publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
address = {Dagstuhl, Germany},
URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2021.86},
URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-145267},
doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2021.86},
annote = {Keywords: Boolean automaton, Regular language, Atoms}
}