Applications of Algebraic Automata Theory to Quantum Finite Automata

The computational model of Quantum Finite Automata has been introduced by multiple authors (e.g. [38, 44]) with some variations in definition. The objective of this thesis is to understand what class of languages can be recognized by these different variations, and how many states are required. We begin by showing that we can use algebraic automata theory to characterize the language recognition power of QFAs. Algebraic automata theory associates to each language a canonical syntactic monoid, and the algebraic structure of this monoid becomes a meaningful parameter in describing language classes. We show that the class of languages recognized by Latvian QFAs [3] corresponds exactly to boolean combinations of languages recognized by Brodsky and Pippenger’s QFA model [20], which correspond exactly to those languages whose syntactic monoid is in the class BG. Known results give us a decision procedure for testing membership in this language class. We also use algebraic automata theory to give nearly tight upper and lower bounds on the class of languages recognized by Brodsky and Pippenger’s QFAs. We then extend a number of lower bound techniques known for Kondacs and Watrous’ 1-way QFA model to Nayak’s Generalized QFA. Both of these models are related in that they are permitted to halt before reading the entire input, allowing them to recognize certain languages whose syntactic monoid lies outside of BG. Finally, we investigate the question of QFA succinctness. It is known that QFAs