Büchi Complementation and Size-Change Termination

We compare tools for complementing nondeterministic Büchi automata with a recent termination-analysis algorithm. Complementation of Büchi automata is a key step in program verification. Early constructions using a Ramsey-based argument have been supplanted by rank-based constructions with exponentially better bounds. In 2001 Lee et al. presented the size-change termination (SCT) problem, along with both a reduction to Büchi automata and a Ramsey-based algorithm. The Ramsey-based algorithm was presented as a more practical alternative to the automata-theoretic approach, but strongly resembles the initial complementation constructions for Büchi automata. We prove that the SCT algorithm is a specialized realization of the Ramsey-based complementation construction. To do so, we extend the Ramsey-based complementation construction to provide a containment-testing algorithm. Surprisingly, empirical analysis suggests that despite the massive gap in worst-case complexity, Ramsey-based approaches are superior over the domain of SCT problems. Upon further analysis we discover an interesting property of the problem space that both explains this result and provides a chance to improve rank-based tools. With these improvements, we show that theoretical gains in efficiency of the rank-based approach are mirrored in empirical performance.