Abstract

. Higher dimensional automata can model concurrent computations. The topological structure of the higher dimensional automata determines certain properties of the concurrent computation. We introduce bicomplexes as an algebraic tool for describing these automata and develop a simple homology theory for higher dimensional automata. We then show how the homology of automata has applications in the study of branching-time equivalences of processes such as bisimulation. 1 Introduction Geometry has been suggested as a tool for modeling concurrency using higher dimensional objects to describe the concurrent execution of processes. This contrasts with earlier models based on the interleaving of computation steps to capture all possible behaviours of a concurrent system. Interleaving models must necessarily commit themselves to a specific choice of atomic action which makes them unable to distinguish between the execution of two truly concurrent actions and two mutually exclusive actions as t...

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