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Let $L$ be the language of infinite words in $\{0,1\}^\omega$ such that any finite prefix of a word in $L$ has at least as many $0$'s as $1$'s. Is $L$ büchi recognisable?

I think that $L$ is not $\omega$ regular, but standard tricks such as complementation or intersecting with some other language don't seem to work.

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As you suspected, $L$ is not büchi recognisable/$\omega$-regular. Here is a proof.


Towards a contradiction, suppose $L$ is $\omega$-regular. Then $$L= A_1B_1^\omega\cup A_2B_2^\omega\cup\cdots\cup A_nB_n^\omega$$ for some $n$, where $A_i$ and $B_i$ are regular languages for all $i$.

Consider $s=0^11^10^21^20^31^3\cdots\in L$. WLOG, suppose $s\in A_1B_1^\omega$. Suppose $s=at$, where $a\in A_1$, $t\in B_1^\omega$.

Let $p$ be a pumping length for $B_1$ as in the general version of the pumping lemma for regular languages, as stated here on Wikipedia.

Consider $\ell=1^{\max(|a|, 2p)}$ that appears in $s$. $\ell$ must appear after $a$ since $0^{|a|}$ appears before $\ell$ in $s$. In other words, $\ell$ is a substring of $s$ without $a$, which is $t$. Since $t\in B_1^\omega$, $\ell$ is the concatenation of a nonempty suffix of a word in $B_1$, zero or more words in $B_1$ and a possibly-empty prefix of a word in $B_1$. There are two cases.

  • $\ell$ contains a word in $B_1$.
    Let $g$ be that word, which contains only $1$s.

  • $\ell$ is a suffix of a word in $B_1$ followed by a possibly-empty prefix of a word in $B_1$.
    Hence $B_1$ contains a word that contains at least $\frac{2p}2=p$ consecutive $1$s. Let $uwv$ be such a string, where $w=1^p$.

    We can write $uwv=uxyzv$ for some string $x,y,z$ with $|y|\ge1$ such that $uxy^iz\in B_1$ for all $i\ge0$, thanks to the general version of the pumping lemma. Since $w$ is all $1$s, so is $y$. Hence for $i$ large enough, $uxy^iz$ has more $1$s than $0s$. Let $g$ be such a word, i.e. $g\in B_1$ has more $1$s than $0$s.

In both cases, we have identified a word $g\in B_1$ that has more $1$s than $0$s. Then $ag^\omega\in A_1B_1^\omega\subseteq L$. However, $ag^\omega\notin L$ since its prefix $ag^{|a|+1}$ has more $1$s than $0$s. This is a contradiction.

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