English

Topological dynamics and recognition of languages

Formal Languages and Automata Theory 2013-06-07 v1 Combinatorics Group Theory

Abstract

We define compact automata and show that every language has a unique minimal compact automaton. We also define recognition of languages by compact left semitopological monoids and construct the analogue of the syntactic monoid in this context. For rational languages this reduces to the usual theory of finite automata and finite monoids.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1306.1468,
  title  = {Topological dynamics and recognition of languages},
  author = {Benjamin Steinberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.1468},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

This draft was written in March 2010 and was intended to be the beginning of a foundational paper on varieties of not necessarily rational languages and varieties of left compact semitopological semigroups, including an Eilenberg variety theorem and a Reiterman's theorem. Lacking sufficient applications to develop the full theory, I put here what has been worked out

R2 v1 2026-06-22T00:29:18.753Z