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Angluin et al. proved that population protocols compute exactly the predicates definable in Presburger arithmetic (PA), the first-order theory of addition. As part of this result, they presented a procedure that translates any formula…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2020-01-14 Michael Blondin , Javier Esparza , Blaise Genest , Martin Helfrich , Stefan Jaax

Population protocols are a well established model of computation by anonymous, identical finite state agents. A protocol is well-specified if from every initial configuration, all fair executions reach a common consensus. The central…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-07-31 Michael Blondin , Javier Esparza , Stefan Jaax , Philipp J. Meyer

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

The population protocol model is a computational model for passive mobile agents. We address the leader election problem, which determines a unique leader on arbitrary communication graphs starting from any configuration. Unfortunately,…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-11-10 Haruki Kanaya , Ryota Eguchi , Taisho Sasada , Michiko Inoue

We study population protocols, a model of distributed computing appropriate for modeling well-mixed chemical reaction networks and other physical systems where agents exchange information in pairwise interactions, but have no control over…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-06-22 David Doty , Mahsa Eftekhari , Eric Severson

This paper shows that every leader election protocol requires logarithmic stabilization time both in expectation and with high probability in the population protocol model. This lower bound holds even if each agent has knowledge of the…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Yuichi Sudo , Toshimitsu Masuzawa

In the stochastic population protocol model, we are given a connected graph with $n$ nodes, and in every time step, a scheduler samples an edge of the graph uniformly at random and the nodes connected by this edge interact. A fundamental…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2023-12-22 Dan Alistarh , Joel Rybicki , Sasha Voitovych

The population protocol model was introduced by Angluin \emph{et al.} as a model of passively mobile anonymous finite-state agents. This model computes a predicate on the multiset of their inputs via interactions by pairs. The original…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2016-02-12 Olivier Bournez , Johanne Cohen , Mikaël Rabie

Population protocols are a well-studied model of distributed computation in which a group of anonymous finite-state agents communicates via pairwise interactions. Together they decide whether their initial configuration, that is, the…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2024-05-03 Steffen van Bergerem , Roland Guttenberg , Sandra Kiefer , Corto Mascle , Nicolas Waldburger , Chana Weil-Kennedy

Population protocols are a class of algorithms for modeling distributed computation in networks of finite-state agents communicating through pairwise interactions. Their suitability for analyzing numerous chemical processes has motivated…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2023-04-04 Talley Amir , James Aspnes , John Lazarsfeld

A population protocol stably computes a relation R(x,y) if its output always stabilizes and R(x,y) holds if and only if y is a possible output for input x. Alternatively, a population protocol computes a predicate R(<x,y>) on pairs <x,y> if…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2024-12-04 James Aspnes

Population protocols are a formal model of sensor networks consisting of identical mobile devices. Two devices can interact and thereby change their states. Computations are infinite sequences of interactions in which the interacting…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-07-03 Michael Blondin , Javier Esparza , Antonín Kučera

Population protocols are a formal model of computation by identical, anonymous mobile agents interacting in pairs. Their computational power is rather limited: Angluin et al. have shown that they can only compute the predicates over…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2019-07-05 Michael Blondin , Javier Esparza , Stefan Jaax

In this paper, the leader election problem in the population protocol model is considered. A leader election protocol with logarithmic stabilization time is given. Given a rough knowledge m of the population size n such that m >= \log_2 n…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2019-07-01 Yuichi Sudo , Fukuhito Ooshita , Taisuke Izumi , Hirotsugu Kakugawa , Toshimitsu Masuzawa

The Population Protocol model is a distributed model that concerns systems of very weak computational entities that cannot control the way they interact. The model of Network Constructors is a variant of Population Protocols capable of…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2015-12-10 Othon Michail , Paul G. Spirakis

Population protocols are a model of distributed computing where $n$ agents, each a simple finite-state machine, interact in pairs to solve a common task against a (adversarial) interaction scheduler. This model was intensively studied in…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Tom-Lukas Breitkopf , Julien Dallot , Antoine El-Hayek , Stefan Schmid

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

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

We consider the standard population protocol model, where (a priori) indistinguishable and anonymous agents interact in pairs according to uniformly random scheduling. The self-stabilizing leader election problem requires the protocol to…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-11-30 Janna Burman , Ho-Lin Chen , Hsueh-Ping Chen , David Doty , Thomas Nowak , Eric Severson , Chuan Xu

We consider the problem of self-stabilizing leader election in the population model by Angluin, Aspnes, Diamadi, Fischer, and Peralta (JDistComp '06). The population model is a well-established and powerful model for asynchronous,…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-05-05 Henry Austin , Petra Berenbrink , Tom Friedetzky , Thorsten Götte , Lukas Hintze