Tree (automata theory)

In automata theory, a tree is a particular way of representing atree structure as sequences of natural numbers.

For example, each node of the

tree is a word over set of
natural numbers (), which
helps this definition to be used
in automata theory.

A tree is a set T * such

that if t.c T, with t *
and c , then t T and t.c1
T for all 0 c1 < c. The
elements of T are known as
nodes, and the empty word is Graphic illustration of the labeled tree described in the example
the (single) root of T. For
every t T, the element t.c
T is a successor of t in direction c. The number of successors of t is called its degree or arity, and represented as d(t). A node is a
leaf if it has no successors. If every node of a tree has finitely many successors, then it is called a finitely, otherwise an infinitely
branching tree. A path is a subset of T such that and for every t T, either t is a leaf or there exists a unique c such
that t.c . A path may be a finite or infinite set. If all paths of a tree are finite then the tree is called finite, otherwise infinite. A tree
is called fully infinite if all its paths are infinite. Given analphabet , a -labeled tree is a pair (T,V), where T is a tree and V: T
maps each node of T to a symbol in . A labeled tree formally defines a commonly used term tree structure. A set of labeled trees is
called a tree language.

A tree is called ordered if there is an order among the successors of each of its nodes. The above definition of tree naturally suggests
an order among the successors, which can be used to make the tree ranked.

In the case of ranked alphabets, an extra function Ar: is defined. This function associates a fixed arity to each symbol of the
alphabet. In this case, each t T has to satisfy Ar(V(t)) = d(t). The trees that satisfy this property are called ranked trees. The trees
that do not (necessarily) satisfy that property are calledunranked.

For example, the above definition is used in the definition of aninfinite tree automaton.

Example
Let T = {0,1}* and = {a,b}. We define a labeling function V as follows: the labeling for the root node is V() = a and, for every
other node t {0,1}*, the labellings for its successor nodes are V(t.0) = a and V(t.1) = b. It is clear from the picture that T forms a
(fully) infinite binary tree.

References
Comon, Hubert; Dauchet, Max; Gilleron, Rmi; Jacquemard, Florent; Lugiez, Denis; Lding, Christof;ison,
T Sophie;
Tommasi, Marc (November 2008). "Preliminaries". Tree Automata Techniques and Applications(PDF). Retrieved
11 February 2014.

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