Every string has probabilistic automatic complexity at most three
Abstract
Gill (arXiv:2402.13376) introduced the probabilistic automatic complexity of a finite string : the least number of states of a probabilistic finite automaton (PFA) for which is the unique most probably accepted string of its length. He asked whether is unbounded, noting that no string with was known (Question 4.14 of that paper). We answer the question by proving that for every string over every finite alphabet. The witnessing three-state automaton is explicit: its reduced dynamics tracks the pair , where is the reversed base- value of the input, and its acceptance functional is a downward parabola peaked at the value of the target string. Combined with Gill's classification of the binary strings with , this completely determines on binary strings.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.26275,
title = {Every string has probabilistic automatic complexity at most three},
author = {Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.26275},
year = {2026}
}