English

A Complete Proof System for 1-Free Regular Expressions Modulo Bisimilarity

Logic in Computer Science 2020-04-28 v1

Abstract

Robin Milner (1984) gave a sound proof system for bisimilarity of regular expressions interpreted as processes: Basic Process Algebra with unary Kleene star iteration, deadlock 0, successful termination 1, and a fixed-point rule. He asked whether this system is complete. Despite intensive research over the last 35 years, the problem is still open. This paper gives a partial positive answer to Milner's problem. We prove that the adaptation of Milner's system over the subclass of regular expressions that arises by dropping the constant 1, and by changing to binary Kleene star iteration is complete. The crucial tool we use is a graph structure property that guarantees expressibility of a process graph by a regular expression, and is preserved by going over from a process graph to its bisimulation collapse.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.12740,
  title  = {A Complete Proof System for 1-Free Regular Expressions Modulo Bisimilarity},
  author = {Clemens Grabmayer and Wan Fokkink},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.12740},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T15:07:13.390Z