The Complexity of the Finite Containment Problem for Petri Nets

Abstract

If the reachability set of a Petri net (or, equivalently, vector addition system) is finite it can be effectively constructed. Furthermore, the finiteness is decidable. Thus, the containment and equality problem for finite reachability sets become solvable. We investigate the complexity of decision procedures for these problems and show by reducing a bounded version of Hilbert's Tenth Problem to the finite containment problem that these two problems are extremely hard, that, in fact, the complexity of each decision procedure exceeds any primitive recursive function infinitely often.