Transition-systems, event structures, and unfoldings

Abstract

A subclass of transition systems called elementary transition systems can be identified with the help of axioms based on a structural notion called regions. Elementary transition systems have been shown to be the transition system model of a basic system model of net theory called elementary net systems. Here we show that by smoothly strengthening the regional axioms for elementary transition systems, one obtains a subclass called occurrence transition system. We then prove that occurrence transition systems are the transition system model of yet another basic model of concurrency, namely, prime event structures. We then propose an operation of unfolding elementary transition systems into occurrence transition systems, We prove that it is "correct" in a strong categorical sense.