CS310 (Automata Theory) 2020

Exercise problem set 1

January 18, 2020

1. Give an NFA over Σ = {a, b} which accepts the languages of words ...
(a) ... that begin and end with the same letter.
(b) ... that contains aaa as a substring but not aab.
(c) ... that contains aaa as a subsequence but not aab.
(d) ... that can be obtained by deleting letters from aababb.
2. Construct a DFA that accepts all words over Σ = {0, 1}, which are binary
representations of multiple of 3.
3. Give an example of a regular language that cannot be recognized by any
NFA with less than 3 states. Prove your answer.
4. Let Σ = {a}. Let L1 = {w ∈ Σ∗ | |w| ≡ 0( mod 2)} and L2 = {w ∈ Σ∗ |
|w| ≡ 0( mod 3)}
(a) What is L3 = L1 ∩ L2 ?
(b) Build automata for L1 , L2 and use the product construction to get
the automaton for L3 .
(c) Build automaton for L3 . What is that language?
5. Prove or disprove:
(a) Every DFA can be converted to an equivalent one with a single accept
state.
(b) Every NFA can be converted to an equivalent one with a single accept
state.
6. Let L1 and L2 be regular languages over Σ. We define L3 over Σ as follows:

L3 = {u1 v1 u2 v2 . . . un vn ∈ Σ∗ | u1 . . . un ∈ L1 , v1 . . . vn ∈ L2 }

Show that L3 is regular by constructing a DFA for L3 using the DFA/NFAs

for L1 and L2 .