Behavioural equivalences on finite-state systems are PTIME-hard

Abstract

The paper shows a LOGSPACE-reduction from the Boolean circuit value problem which demonstrates that any relation subsuming bisimilarity and being subsumed by trace preorder (ie, language inclusion) is PTIME-hard, even for finite acyclic labelled transition systems. This reproves and substantially extends the result of Balcazar, Gabarro and Santha (1992) for bisimilarity.