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Given a regular language $L$ over a unary alphabet $\Sigma = \{ a \}$.

How to decide whether there are two words $w,w' \in L$ such that the length of $w$ is relatively prime to the length of $w'$ ?

Barbara
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1 Answers1

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Consider a minimal DFA for $L$. Each state in the DFA has one outgoing edge, so the DFA looks like a path entering a cycle. That means that $W = \{ n : a^n \in L \}$ is eventually periodic: for some $k,l$, for all $n \geq k$ it holds that $n \in W$ iff $n + l \in W$. We are now left with a problem in number theory, which I leave for you to ponder. (Try a few examples to see when an eventually periodic $W$ can fail to satisfy the property you're looking for.)

Yuval Filmus
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