Tree automata, mu-calculus and determinacy

Abstract

It is shown that the propositional mu-calculus is equivalent in expressive power to finite automata on infinite trees. Since complementation is trivial in the mu-calculus, the equivalence provides a radically simplified, alternative proof of M.O. Rabin's (1989) complementation lemma for tree automata, which is the heart of one of the deepest decidability results. It is also shown how mu-calculus can be used to establish determinacy of infinite games used in earlier proofs of complementation lemma, and certain games used in the theory of online algorithms.<>