Configuration structures

Abstract

Configuration structures provide a model of concurrency generalising the families of configurations of event structures. They can be considered logically, as classes of propositional models; then, sub-classes can be axiomatised by formulae of simple prescribed forms. Several equivalence relations for event structures are generalized to configuration structures, and also to general Petri nets. Every configuration structure is shown to be ST-bisimulation equivalent to a prime event structure with binary conflict; this fails for the tighter history-preserving bisimulation. Finally, Petri nets without self-loops under the collective token interpretation are shown to be behaviourally equivalent to configuration structures, in the sense that there are translations in both directions respecting history-preserving bisimulation. This fails for nets with self-loops.