Second Order Theory of Min-Linear Systems and its Application to Discrete Event Systems

A Second Order Theory is developed for linear systems over the (min,+)-algebra; in particular the classical notion of correlation is extended to this algebraic structure. It turns out that if we model timed event graphs as linear systems in this algebra, this new notion of correlation can be used to study stocks and sojourn times, and thus to characterize internal stability (boundedness of stocks and sojourn times). This theory relies heavily on the algebraic notion of residuation which is briefly presented.