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For a formal language L , the problem of language enumeration asks to compute the length-lexicographically smallest word in L larger than a given input w ∈ Σ ∗ (henceforth called the L -successor of w). We investigate this problem for regular languages from a computational complexity and state complexity perspective. We first show that if L is recognized by a DFA with n states, then 2 Θ (n log n) states are (in general) necessary and sufficient for an unambiguous finite-state transducer to compute L -successors. As a byproduct, we obtain that if L is recognized by a DFA with n states, then 2 Θ (n log n) states are sufficient for a DFA to recognize the subset S (L) of L composed of its lexicographically smallest words. We give a matching lower bound that holds even if S (L) is represented as an NFA. It has been known that L -successors can be computed in polynomial time, even if the regular language is given as part of the input (assuming a suitable representation of the language, such as a DFA). In this paper, we refine this result in multiple directions. We show that if the regular language is given as part of the input and encoded as a DFA, the problem is in N L. If the regular language L is fixed, we prove that the enumeration problem of the language is reducible to deciding membership to the Myhill-Nerode equivalence classes of L under D L O G T I M E -uniform A C 0 reductions. In particular, this implies that fixed star-free languages can be enumerated in A C 0 , arbitrary fixed regular languages can be enumerated in N C 1 and that there exist regular languages for which the problem is N C 1 -complete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove some new theorems in additive number theory, using novel techniques from automata theory and formal languages. As an example of our method, we prove that every natural number > 2 5 is the sum of at most three natural numbers whose base- 2 representation has an equal number of 0 's and 1 's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A famous theorem of Kuratowski states that, in a topological space, at most 14 distinct sets can be produced by repeatedly applying the operations of closure and complement to a given set. We re-examine this theorem in the setting of formal languages, where by "closure" we mean either Kleene closure or positive closure. We classify languages according to the structure of the algebras they generate under iterations of complement and closure. There are precisely 9 such algebras in the case of positive closure, and 12 in the case of Kleene closure. We study how the properties of being open and closed are preserved under concatenation. We investigate analogues, in formal languages, of the separation axioms in topological spaces; one of our main results is that there is a clopen partition separating two words if and only if the words do not commute. We can decide in quadratic time if the language specified by a DFA is closed, but if the language is specified by an NFA, the problem is PSPACE-complete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we give the cost, in terms of states, of some basic operations (union, intersection, concatenation, and Kleene star) on regular languages in the unary case (where the alphabet contains only one symbol). These costs are given by explicitly determining the number of states in the noncyclic and cyclic parts of the resulting automata. Furthermore, we prove that our bounds are optimal. We also present an interesting connection to Jacobsthal′s function from number theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]