On Decompositions of Regular Events

Abstract
Decompositions of regular events into star events, i.e. events of the form W = V *, are studied. Mathematically, the structure of a star event is that of a monoid. First it is shown that every regular event contains a finite number of maximal star events, which are shown to be regular and can be effectively computed. Necessary and sufficient conditions for a regular event to be the union of its maximal star events are found. Next, star events are factored out from arbitrary events, yielding the form W - V * T . For each W there exists a unique largest V * and a unique smallest T ; an algorithm for finding suitable regular expressions for V and T is developed. Finally, an open problem of Paz and Peleg is answered: Every regular event is decomposable as a finite product of star events and prime events.

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