Ambiguity Hierarchy of Regular Infinite Tree Languages
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An automaton is unambiguous if for every input it has at most one accepting computation. An automaton is k-ambiguous (for k>0) if for every input it has at most k accepting computations. An automaton is boundedly ambiguous if there is k, such that for every input it has at most k accepting computations. An automaton is finitely (respectively, countably) ambiguous if for every input it has at most finitely (respectively, countably) many accepting computations. The degree of ambiguity of a regular language is defined in a natural way. A language is k-ambiguous (respectively, boundedly, finitely, countably ambiguous) if it is accepted by a k-ambiguous (respectively, boundedly, finitely, countably ambiguous) automaton. Over finite words, every regular language is accepted by a deterministic automaton. Over finite trees, every regular language is accepted by an unambiguous automaton. Over ω-words every regular language is accepted by an unambiguous Büchi automaton and by a deterministic parity automaton. Over infinite trees, Carayol et al. showed that there are ambiguous languages. We show that over infinite trees there is a hierarchy of degrees of ambiguity: For every k>1 there are k-ambiguous languages which are not k-1 ambiguous; and there are finitely (respectively countably, uncountably) ambiguous languages which are not boundedly (respectively finitely, countably) ambiguous.
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