Topological Characterization of Stabilizing Consensus

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Schmid, Ulrich, Felber, Stephan, Rincon-Galeana, Hugo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Schmid, Ulrich
Felber, Stephan
Rincon-Galeana, Hugo
author_facet Schmid, Ulrich
Felber, Stephan
Rincon-Galeana, Hugo
contents We provide a complete characterization of the solvability/impossibility of deterministic stabilizing consensus in any computing model with benign process and communication faults using point-set topology. Relying on the topologies for infinite executions introduced by Nowak, Schmid and Winkler (JACM, 2024) for terminating consensus, we prove that semi-open decision sets and semi-continuous decision functions as introduced by Levin (AMM, 1963) are the appropriate means for this characterization: Unlike the decision functions for terminating consensus, which are continuous, semi-continuous functions do not require the inverse image of an open set to be open and hence allow to map a connected space to a disconnected one. We also show that multi-valued stabilizing consensus with weak and strong validity are equivalent, as is the case for terminating consensus. By applying our results to (variants of) all the known possibilities/impossibilities for stabilizing consensus, we easily provide a topological explanation of these results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_07106
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Topological Characterization of Stabilizing Consensus
Schmid, Ulrich
Felber, Stephan
Rincon-Galeana, Hugo
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
General Topology
C.2.4; F.1.1; G.m
We provide a complete characterization of the solvability/impossibility of deterministic stabilizing consensus in any computing model with benign process and communication faults using point-set topology. Relying on the topologies for infinite executions introduced by Nowak, Schmid and Winkler (JACM, 2024) for terminating consensus, we prove that semi-open decision sets and semi-continuous decision functions as introduced by Levin (AMM, 1963) are the appropriate means for this characterization: Unlike the decision functions for terminating consensus, which are continuous, semi-continuous functions do not require the inverse image of an open set to be open and hence allow to map a connected space to a disconnected one. We also show that multi-valued stabilizing consensus with weak and strong validity are equivalent, as is the case for terminating consensus. By applying our results to (variants of) all the known possibilities/impossibilities for stabilizing consensus, we easily provide a topological explanation of these results.
title Topological Characterization of Stabilizing Consensus
topic Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
General Topology
C.2.4; F.1.1; G.m
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.07106