How to handle multiple exponents (Pumping-Lemma)

Question

Example $L = {(ab)^na^k|n\ge k}$

When searching for a word $w$, using $p \in \mathbb{N}$, for instance $(ab)^pa^p$, but wanting to pump $a$ (which is not possible because $|xy| \le p$ holds), how do I deal with that? I would need a variable $j \lt p$ for $(ab)^ja^j$ to have the possibility that $a \in y$, so I can pump $a$ and argue that $(ab)^ja^{j+(i-1)|y|} \notin L$ → The condition is no longer satisfied: $\forall i\ge 0: xy^iz \in L$.

My question: How is the best way to handle multiple exponents? Not just in this but in general.

Answer 1

There is actually a more generalized version of the pumping lemma, where you can pump a substring anywhere in the word. The proof is almost the same: in a computation of a word $w$ in a DFA, if there is a substring long enough, it contains a cycle.

The lemma can be stated as such:

Let $L$ be a regular language over alphabet $\Sigma$. Then there exists a pumping length $p$ such that if $uvw\in L$ with $|v| \geqslant p$, then there exists a decomposition $v = xyz$ such that:

• $|xy|\leqslant p$
• $y \neq \varepsilon$
• for any $k\in \mathbb{N}$, $uxy^kzw\in L$.

For your language, you want to apply this lemma with $uvw = (ab)^pa^p$ with $u = (ab)^p$, $v = a^p$ and $w = \varepsilon$.

There is another way to handle this language without the need of changing the lemma, but you need a bit of a trick: you can show that $L$ is the mirror language of $L' = \{a^k(ba)^n\mid n\geqslant k\}$. You can use the classic version of the pumping lemma to show that $L'$ is not regular, and since the mirror operation must preserve regularity, $L$ is not regular either.

Answer 2

There is a solution to your pumping problem using the classical formulation of the Pumping Lemma, writing $w=xyz$ and considering $|xy| \le p$ and $xy^iz$ for $i\ge 0$. The trick is pumping down...

For clarity, instead consider $L = \{b^na^k \mid n\ge k\}$. Assume pumping length $p$. Consider the string $w = b^pa^p$. Setting $w = xyz$ with $|xy|\le p$ implies that $y$ consists of $a$'s only. Deleting $y$, i.e. setting $i=0$, gives us the string $xy^0 z = a^{p-|y|} a^p$ which is not in $L$ as $p-|y| < p$.

In general there might not be a common solution for handling "multiple exponents". An infamous example is the language $\{ a^n b^m \mid n\neq m \}$ where the usual Pumping Lemma can be applied, but one needs factorials. See https://cs.stackexchange.com/a/64074/4287. Other approaches are available too, see the other answers to that problem.