A Linear Parallel Algorithm to Compute Bisimulation and Relational Coarsest Partitions

The most efficient way to calculate strong bisimilarity is by finding the relational coarsest partition of a transition system. We provide the first linear-time algorithm to calculate strong bisimulation using parallel random access machines (PRAMs). More precisely, with n states, m transitions and $$| Act |\le m$$ | A c t | ≤ m action labels, we provide an algorithm for $$\max (n,m)$$ max ( n , m ) processors that calculates strong bisimulation in time $$\mathcal {O}(n+| Act |)$$ O ( n + | A c t | ) and space $$\mathcal {O}(n+m)$$ O ( n + m ) . The best-known PRAM algorithm has time complexity $$\mathcal {O}(n\log n)$$ O ( n log n ) on a smaller number of processors making it less suitable for massive parallel devices such as GPUs. An implementation on a GPU shows that the linear time-bound is achievable on contemporary hardware.