A Prime Decomposition of Probabilistic Automata

Abstract

A definition of a probabilistic automaton is formulated in which its prime decomposition follows as a direct consequence of Krohn-Rhodes theorem. We first characterize the local structure of probabilistic automata. The prime decomposition is presented as a framework to study the global structure of probabilistic automata. We prove that the representation theory of a probabilistic automaton is determined by that of the finite groups in its holonomy decomposition.