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The model of population protocols refers to a large collection of simple indistinguishable entities, frequently called {\em agents}. The agents communicate and perform computation through pairwise interactions. We study fast and space…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-05-15 Leszek Gąsieniec , Grzegorz Stachowiak , Przemysław Uznański

A population protocol can be viewed as a sequence of pairwise interactions of $n$ agents (nodes). During one interaction, two agents selected uniformly at random update their states by applying a specified deterministic transition function.…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-06-12 Petra Berenbrink , Robert Elsässer , Tom Friedetzky , Dominik Kaaser , Peter Kling , Tomasz Radzik

In this work, we initiate the study of \emph{smoothed analysis} of population protocols. We consider a population protocol model where an adaptive adversary dictates the interactions between agents, but with probability $p$ every such…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-05-27 Gregory Schwartzman , Yuichi Sudo

We present a loosely-stabilizing phase clock for population protocols. In the population model we are given a system of $n$ identical agents which interact in a sequence of randomly chosen pairs. Our phase clock is leaderless and it…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-12-03 Petra Berenbrink , Felix Biermeier , Christopher Hahn , Dominik Kaaser

A population protocol describes a set of state change rules for a population of $n$ indistinguishable finite-state agents (automata), undergoing random pairwise interactions. Within this very basic framework, it is possible to resolve a…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-04-19 Adrian Kosowski , Przemysław Uznański

We address the self-stabilizing exact majority problem in the population protocol model, introduced by Angluin, Aspnes, Diamadi, Fischer, and Peralta (2004). In this model, there are $n$ state machines, called agents, which form a network.…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-06-03 Haruki Kanaya , Ryota Eguchi , Taisho Sasada , Fukuhito Ooshita , Michiko Inoue

Population protocols are a model of distributed computing, in which $n$ agents with limited local state interact randomly, and cooperate to collectively compute global predicates. An extensive series of papers, across different communities,…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2017-07-17 Dan Alistarh , James Aspnes , Rati Gelashvili

Population protocols are a distributed computing model appropriate for describing massive numbers of agents with limited computational power. A population protocol "has an initial leader" if every valid initial configuration contains a…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-11-06 Amanda Belleville , David Doty , David Soloveichik

We study uniform population protocols: networks of anonymous agents whose pairwise interactions are chosen at random, where each agent uses an identical transition algorithm that does not depend on the population size $n$. Many existing…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2019-07-30 David Doty , Mahsa Eftekhari

The population protocol model describes collections of distributed agents that interact in pairs to solve a common task. We consider a dynamic variant of this prominent model, where we assume that an adversary may change the population size…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2024-05-09 Dominik Kaaser , Maximilian Lohmann

We study the self-stabilizing leader election (SS-LE) problem in the population protocol model, assuming exact knowledge of the population size $n$. Burman, Chen, Chen, Doty, Nowak, Severson, and Xu [BCC+21] (PODC) showed that this problem…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Yuichi Sudo

Population protocols are a model of computation in which an arbitrary number of anonymous finite-memory agents are interacting in order to decide by stable consensus a predicate. In this paper, we focus on the counting predicates that asks,…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2022-03-25 Jérôme Leroux

Population protocols are a distributed computation model in which a collection of anonymous, finite-state agents interact in randomly chosen pairs and update their states according to a fixed transition function. The computation is defined…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Michael Blondin , Michaël Cadilhac , Benjamin Courchesne , Lucie Guillou , Corto Mascle , Isa Vialard

We study population protocols: networks of anonymous agents that interact under a scheduler that picks pairs of agents uniformly at random. The _size counting problem_ is that of calculating the exact number $n$ of agents in the population,…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-05-15 David Doty , Mahsa Eftekhari , Othon Michail , Paul G. Spirakis , Michail Theofilatos

In this paper we study population protocols governed by the {\em random scheduler}, which uniformly at random selects pairwise interactions between $n$ agents. The main result of this paper is the first time and space optimal {\em exact…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-06-29 Leszek Gąsieniec , Grzegorz Stachowiak , Przemysław Uznański

The standard population protocol model assumes that when two agents interact, each observes the entire state of the other agent. We initiate the study of $\textit{message complexity}$ for population protocols, where the state of an agent is…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-12-16 Talley Amir , James Aspnes , David Doty , Mahsa Eftekhari , Eric Severson

We introduce a new coordination problem in distributed computing that we call the population stability problem. A system of agents each with limited memory and communication, as well as the ability to replicate and self-destruct, is…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-03-09 Shafi Goldwasser , Rafail Ostrovsky , Alessandra Scafuro , Adam Sealfon

Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ nodes. In the stochastic population protocol model, a collection of $n$ indistinguishable, resource-limited nodes collectively solve tasks via pairwise interactions. In each interaction, two randomly chosen…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-05-13 Dan Alistarh , Rati Gelashvili , Joel Rybicki

We propose a protocol to solve Leader Election within weak communication models such as the beeping model or the stone-age model. Unlike most previous work, our algorithm operates on only six states, does not require unique identifiers, and…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-05-05 Robin Vacus , Isabella Ziccardi

Population protocols are a model for distributed computing that is focused on simplicity and robustness. A system of $n$ identical agents (finite state machines) performs a global task like electing a unique leader or determining the…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2020-08-24 Petra Berenbrink , Robert Elsässer , Tom Friedetzky , Dominik Kaaser , Peter Kling , Tomasz Radzik