English

Positional $\omega$-regular languages

Formal Languages and Automata Theory 2026-03-11 v4 Computer Science and Game Theory Logic in Computer Science

Abstract

In the context of two-player games over graphs, a language LL is called positional if, in all games using LL as winning objective, the protagonist can play optimally using positional strategies, that is, strategies that do not depend on the history of the play. In this work, we describe the class of parity automata recognising positional languages, providing a complete characterisation of positionality for ω\omega-regular languages. As corollaries, we establish decidability of positionality in polynomial time, finite-to-infinite and 1-to-2-players lifts, and show the closure under union of prefix-independent positional objectives, answering a conjecture by Kopczy\'nski in the ω\omega-regular case.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.15384,
  title  = {Positional $\omega$-regular languages},
  author = {Antonio Casares and Pierre Ohlmann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.15384},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

109 pages. This is the TheoretiCS journal version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:28:57.994Z