Decision Problems for Petri Nets with Names

We prove several decidability and undecidability results for -PN, an extension of P/T nets with pure name creation and name management. We give a simple proof of undecidability of reachability, by reducing reachability in nets with inhibitor arcs to it. Thus, the expressive power of -PN strictly surpasses that of P/T nets. We prove that -PN are Well Structured Transition Systems. In particular, we obtain decidability of coverability and termination, so that the expressive power of Turing machines is not reached. Moreover, they are strictly Well Structured, so that the boundedness problem is also decidable. We consider two properties, width-boundedness and depth-boundedness, that factorize boundedness. Width-boundedness has already been proved to be decidable. We prove here undecidability of depth-boundedness. Finally, we obtain Ackermann-hardness results for all our decidable decision problems. Key words: Petri nets, pure names, Well Structured Transition Systems, decidability

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Fernando Rosa Velardo, David de Frutos-Escrig
• Keywords: CORR 2010, Education, Expressive Power, Inhibitor Arcs, Transition Systems