Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper studies distributed-computing tasks through the lens of space complexity in the read/write wait-free model, defined as the number of multi-reader-multi-writer atomic read/write registers needed to solve a task using a wait-free algorithm. Surprisingly, even though the read/write wait-free model is at the foundation of distributed computing, previous work on space complexity has focused on synchronization primitives stronger than read/write registers or on weaker progress conditions. The paper reveals that the read/write wait-free model offers a rich space-complexity landscape: (1) assuming non-anonymous processes, it shows that there is an infinite hierarchy of tasks of increasing space complexity; (2) it shows that space complexity separates anonymous from non-anonymous memory; (3) regardless of process or register anonymity, it exhibits a task of space complexity two, which is the minimal non-trivial space complexity; (4) finally, it shows that subcases of the adopt-commit task have different space complexity in non-anonymous memory under bounded wait-freedom.
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7118676083
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