Bertoni et al.  introduced in Lect. Notes Comput. Sci.2710 (2003) 1–20 a new model of 1-way quantum finite automaton (1qfa) called 1qfa with control language (1qfc). This model, whose recognizing power is exactly the class of regular languages, generalizes main models of 1qfa's proposed in the literature. Here, we investigate some properties of 1qfc's. In particular, we provide algorithms for constructing 1qfc's accepting the inverse homomorphic images and quotients of languages accepted by 1qfc's. Moreover, we give instances of binary regular languages on which 1qfc's are proved to be more succinct (i.e. , to have less states) than the corresponding classical (deterministic) automata.

We show that, for any stochastic event p of period n, there exists a measure-once one-way quantum finite automaton (1qfa) with at most $2\sqrt{6n}+25$ states inducing the event ap+b, for constants a>0, b ≥ 0, satisfying a+b ≥ 1. This fact is proved by designing an algorithm which constructs the desired 1qfa in polynomial time. As a consequence, we get that any periodic language of period n can be accepted with isolated cut point by a 1qfa with no more than $2\sqrt{6n}+26$ states. Our results give added evidence of the strength of measure-once 1qfa's with respect to classical automata.

We investigate the succinctness of several kinds of unary automata by studying their state complexity in accepting the family {Lm} of cyclic languages, where Lm = akm | k ∈ N. In particular, we show that, for any m, the number of states necessary and sufficient for accepting the unary language Lm with isolated cut point on one-way probabilistic finite automata is $p_1^{\alpha_1}+ p_2^{\alpha_2} +\cdots +p_s^{\alpha_s}$, with $p_1^{\alpha_1}p_2^{\alpha_2} \cdots p_s^{\alpha_s}$ being the factorization of m. To prove this result, we give a general state lower bound for accepting unary languages with isolated cut point on the one-way probabilistic model. Moreover, we exhibit one-way quantum finite automata that, for any m, accept Lm with isolated cut point and only two states. These results are settled within a survey on unary automata aiming to compare the descriptional power of deterministic, nondeterministic, probabilistic and quantum paradigms.

The complexity of computing, via threshold circuits, the iterated product and powering of fixed-dimension $k\times k$ matrices with integer or rational entries is studied. We call these two problems $\sf IMP_k$ and $\sf MPOW_k$, respectively, for short. We prove that: (i) For $k\geq2$, $\sf IMP_k$ does not belong to ${\rm TC}^0$, unless ${\rm TC}^0={\rm NC}^1$.newline (ii) For stochastic matrices : $\sf IMP_2$ belongs to ${\rm TC}^0$ while, for $k\geq3$, $\sf IMP_k$ does not belong to ${\rm TC}^0$, unless ${\rm TC}^0={\rm NC}^1$. (iii) For any k, $\sf MPOW_k$ belongs to ${\rm TC}^0$.