# Non-Sequential Theory of Distributed Systems

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.06942 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.06942/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 15 Apr 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [A partial order view of message-passing communication models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13062/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

These lecture notes cover basic automata-theoretic concepts and logical formalisms for the modeling and verification of concurrent and distributed systems. Many of these concepts naturally extend the classical automata and logics over words, which provide a framework for modeling sequential systems. A distributed system, on the other hand, combines several (finite or recursive) processes, and will therefore be modeled as a collection of (finite or pushdown, respectively) automata. A crucial parameter of a distributed system is the kind of interaction that is allowed between processes. In this lecture, we focus on the message-passing paradigm. In general, communication in a distributed system creates complex dependencies between events, which are hidden when using a sequential, operational semantics. The approach taken here is based on a faithful preservation of the dependencies of concurrent events. That is, an execution of a system is modeled as a partial order, or graph, rather than a sequence of events.