Reversibility of Computations in Graph-Walking Automata

The paper proposes a general notation for deterministic automata traversing finite undirected structures: the graph-walking automata. This abstract notion covers such models as two-way finite automata, including their multi-tape and multi-head variants, tree-walking automata and their extension with pebbles, picture-walking automata, space-bounded Turing machines, etc. It is then demonstrated that every graph-walking automaton can be transformed to an equivalent reversible graph-walking automaton, so that every step of its computation is logically reversible. This is done with a linear blow-up in the number of states, where the linear factor depends on the degree of graphs being traversed. The construction directly applies to all basic models covered by this abstract notion.

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